Peacetime
by Eyesdown104
Summary: Post S2, the first 48hrs after the bomb. Brody, Carrie, Jess, Saul, Dana and Quinn try to make sense of events and come to terms with the attack on the CIA and its impact on their lives. Multi chapter, multi character. Some swearing and adult content. No copyright claimed, no infringement intended.
1. Chapter 1

Brody stared into space, arms crossed tight over his chest, fingers stuffed into his armpits. It was cold and he could see his breath dance in front of his face momentarily when he exhaled. His ass had gone numb from sitting in the same position on the hard floor for so long. He didn't know how long he had been sitting there...he had a watch but he didn't care to look at the time since he knew that the numbers had already lost all their meaning to him. A shaft of blue light was picking its way through the rickety window above his head but he didn't know if it was from the moon or the arrival of another day. His eyes glazed over. Was this lethargy, depression or exhaustion? Shell shock maybe? He had been here before. Time alone, nothing to do but retreat into his mind, into his memories, replaying events and examining the accursed course that had led him to this sorry point. No future to worry about, or even to hope for. This was bleak but far preferable to counting the minutes until the next beating, wondering which would be the next of his bones to snap. There were no jailers here, he told himself. He was safe, for now. She had afforded him that.

He tried to determine the exact moment that he had fallen for her. It was difficult. The first time he ever saw her? In the debrief at Langley? No. His head had still been spinning at that point and it took all his concentration to bat off their questions without digging himself a hole. They weren't trying too hard anyway, most of them. They didn't seem to suspect him of anything, it was as they had said, just a fact finding session on his 'time in captivity'. They had taken care to show deference to the 'war hero'. The phrase had always made him wince when used in connection with himself, although he'd often found it convenient to hide behind. At the debrief, the CIA officers were keen to show concern for all he had been through, and he just had to play the trauma card if things got too hot. Apart from her, that was. She had been more forceful, her questions more aggressive. In retrospect he had realised that she'd been onto him from the off. He had found her annoying, at first suspecting that they'd arranged it all beforehand, agreed to soften him up with a series of fairly benign questions and then got the pretty blonde amongst them to play bad cop and insist he had known Abu Nazir during him time away, just to throw him off balance. But that was just paranoia due to his guilty conscience. There had been no plan, no inkling that he was anything other than what he appeared to be. It was just Carrie, completely correct in her suspicion of him but completely alone. Completely. There was that word again. Estes had shot her down for it during the debrief but Brody had maybe subconsciously registered a note of respect for her, even then. That was his first impression of her. He had arrogantly thought he'd gotten away with it, almost forgotten her until he bumped into her at that church group. Boy, how wrong he was to have dismissed her so easily! He smiled to himself fondly. She was like a dog with a bone.

Perhaps it had been at the church meeting. They had got caught in a storm while they were talking in the parking lot and he hadn't cared a bit. Perhaps the fabled bolt of lightening had struck him right there and he hadn't realised. Something had happened then, he was sure. He had since found out that she had been reeling him in deliberately, pushing the right buttons, establishing a rapport. She had some balls. But despite that, he felt that even if she had been doing it as part of her surveillance of him, something undeniable had passed between them. You can't fake that kind of feeling, can you? He didn't want to believe that she could have manipulated him so easy. But he had probably been ripe for it and she would have known it. Things were dire at home, Jess had issued her ultimatum and Brody had reluctantly turned up to the PTSD support group that night because he knew that if he hadn't shown willing, then the fine thread holding his marriage together would have disintegrated entirely. Even though he had a mission, and still fully intended to complete it at that stage, he craved his family and truly wanted to be with them again in the way he had imagined during all those years in Iraq. But the knowledge of what he now was, what he had vowed to do and the feeling that he could never begin to explain to Jess what had happened to the Brody she'd grown up with kept them apart. They just couldn't connect any more. And he couldn't even bring himself to do the necessary just to let her_ feel_ that she'd brought him some comfort, which is all he knew she wanted. She had been patient, she'd been gentle. She had tried sex but he couldn't stand her touching him. He could feel her hands on him, searching for the old Brody, only to find his scars, the sites of his wounds, the parts of him where loose chips of bone now floated under his skin. It was as if she had come to identify his body at the morgue and was caressing his corpse, horrified despite her obvious love for him, only room left for grief. No amount of tenderness or seduction had any effect, one of them always wound up crying. He tried to give her what she wanted but any passion she managed to incite was quickly overtaken by this fury that came out of nowhere and left her feeling like she had been used by a stranger, rather than reunited with her childhood sweetheart, the father of her children. He recognised all this, he knew she had a right to the old Brody. He decided that bit by bit he might eventually reacclimatize to physical intimacy, so he laid close by her in bed, let her rest her head on his chest. Jess slept soundly like this, seemingly satisfied at the little contact he had allowed her but he lay awake, skin crawling. When he awoke with a jolt, covered in sweat and found her to be gone, sobbing in their bathroom or already off making breakfast for the kids, he knew that his dreams of the jailers or of hauling Isa's limp form from underneath smouldering girders had not been just dreams. He couldn't bear hurting her, none of it was her fault. So he took to sleeping on the floor where he couldn't lash out. He was more comfortable there, where he didn't have to worry about mistaking her arm coming to rest on his hip for a jailer shaking him awake and bearing down on him with a club. Brody began to accept that they were lost to one another and concluded that this was just the way he was now, unable to relax in another's company, only ever at peace when he prayed in the garage.

Until that encounter with Carrie at the church. It was just a few minutes but the way she made him feel caught him totally by surprise. She seemed to know where he was coming from without asking him to explain. Of course, she _did_ know where he was coming from,_ literally_. She'd been watching him. That used to make him feel foolish. But it wasn't just that. And then the rain came down and she made to leave and he wanted to chase her, keep her talking. He was attracted to her, sure, but it was more the sudden realisation that being with another person didn't have to be as fraught as every human encounter he'd had since coming home. Brody recalled his feelings from that night and felt sure that, no, he hadn't fallen in love with Carrie in that moment. It had felt special though, like he'd been given a gift. '_Heightened_', was the word she had later used to describe that moment in the downpour to him and as soon as she said it he realised that she had felt it too, whatever it was, and he was heartened. She'd given him hope that night, and he hadn't felt that in a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

Carrie had thrown his cell phone out of the window. What he'd give to talk to her now. Or to Dana. He so desperately wanted to speak to his daughter. He knew that he'd get no sense from Jess, she'd be hysterical right now. Brody closed his eyes tight for a few seconds and sighed. What must they be going through now, all of them? Dana was the one he wanted to explain things to most. She had known something was wrong months back. Dana, who had only been a tiny girl when he left for Iraq was somehow the one who knew him the most when he returned. The one who picked up on something bad being afoot. She was her father's daughter, he guessed, although thankfully for her she looked more like her mother than she did him. They would all have seen that video by now and it would be sinking in. Dana would remember what happened the day of the bunker, the way she'd challenged Brody on how strangely he had been acting just beforehand, enough for her to beg him not to go out that day, the fact that Carrie had appeared at the house, so agitated, and the way she had talked him down on the phone. It would all fall into place for her now, all right.

Monster. Terrorist. Jihadist.

He was none of these but he knew that all the evidence pointed to the contrary and just prayed that he could credit his daughter with being able to see past it all. What was he even thinking? There was a video being aired right now in which Brody clearly laid out his reasons for taking a stand, for committing the atrocity. Just not _this_ atrocity. He only ever wanted to avenge Isa's death, to expose the hypocrisy of Walden, the man who sent soldiers like Brody to casually raze a school to the ground and who would then lie about it for political gain. He stood by his hatred of Walden. He was glad he was dead and pleased to have played his part in it. He would have done it even if Carrie had not been Nazir's bargaining chip. Brody would never sanction the death of innocents, not in his name, at home or abroad.

Dana was 17. He thought about himself at that age. It was too much to ask of her to understand, or even to expect her to question the version of events that would be presented to her. Brody had failed her many times in the recent months and she had been furious with him. Even at her tender age, she knew right from wrong, she had tried to do the right thing regarding the hit and run and she had looked to Brody to help her. He had so wanted to be there for her and he was proud of her for facing up to what she had done. He had failed at the last when they ran into Carrie at the police station and felt his daughter's loss of respect and look of total contempt like a knife in the gut as she stormed away from him. Now this. Finn had been at the memorial service when the bomb went off. Brody doubted that he could have survived. Dana would be distraught. He thought about her beautiful dimples and then the scowl that painted her face more often than not these days, her quick temper and her intolerance of her little brother's goofiness. He closed his eyes again. What could he possibly say to her even if he had his phone?

And Chris. What would this do to him? He had already been through enough. His dad had been missing, presumed dead, before Chris could even talk. Spoken about in the past tense, a figure he didn't really remember but larger than life, a hero. Then suddenly he was back, not dead after all, but still a hero. He'd finally get to see what a real hero looked like. It can't have been too impressive up close. He would have heard him yelping in the night and seen him shaking at breakfast. He had met his father in the airport lounge and offered him his hand to shake. It had seemed like the most appropriate thing to do. This man was a hero, a soldier, a warrior. Chris hadn't wanted to disappoint a man like that by bawling like a baby. Brody couldn't believe that this boy was the toddler he had left behind in his buggy. He was older than Isa had been but he looked at Brody in the same wide-eyed, expectant manner. In the time that Brody had been home, he knew he had neglected Chris. He just hadn't been available, in any sense of the word. Jess had pushed him to bond with his son, suggesting that he watch Chris play football or attend his karate meets, trying to foster a little 'man time'. But Brody had never made it. Part of it was circumstance, Brody conceded, but he recognised that there were also darker elements at play.

When Brody left for Iraq, Chris was really just a baby and along with Dana, his pride and joy. It killed him to leave them, especially his son who was still changing every day. Dana had reached a precociously sassy steady state, was fiercely independent and would proffer withering glances at anyone who dared insist they could help her tie her shoes or visit the bathroom. Apart from her daddy, of course, she was uniformly sweet on him. Chris had started toddling around and he looked up to his dad in the way little boys do. They would wrestle and play rough, despite Jess' half-hearted objections, although she would melt when she heard Chris' throaty giggling. Tossing a football in the garden and the passing on of Brody's legendary soccer skills to his son wasn't going so well just yet but there'd be time for all that. Brody knew that Chris would be barely recogniseable by the end of this next tour and he hated to miss so much and to leave Jess to cope with two young kids. But he had to do it. They had family and friends around Jess to help and Brody's mom was a constant presence at their place.

Then what happened had happened. While he was away, Brody prayed that Chris was growing up strong and looking after his mom and sister. When Isa came into his life, Brody came to think of Nazir's son as a surrogate Chris. When Isa was taken, Brody was devastated, possibly as much as Nazir, although he felt he had no right. Brody's relationship with Isa had been warm, easy, nourishing. The initial shock of a child's love after years of horrific abuse had been profound but had softened Brody's detachment from the world. He was only able to function as well as he could today due to him. Isa brought Brody back to humanity again and in a funny way, through loving Isa, Brody could pretend he was caring for Chris all those thousands of miles away too. Nazir had held Isa at arm's length, was an austere, strict figure and he terrified the boy. Brody was the perfect foil to that and Isa would do anything to please him. He went about learning English at an astonishing rate, just to earn Brody's praise and feel him mess his hair.

The body of an imp peeking out behind the door, that gappy grin once he realised he'd been busted and heard Brody call out "Hey, brat, you wanna play soccer?" from behind his book. A tear hit Brody's chin as he sat motionless in the dark.

Chris was not Isa. It wasn't his fault and Brody knew it was unfair but the fact remained. He was nothing like him really, but his behaviour reminded Brody of Isa, just through being a little boy. The way he sought his approval, craved Brody's attention, mimicked his posture. And it pained him. Being near his own son just dredged up all the grief he felt for the boy who was not.

In any case, Chris ostensibly already had a father. Most kids at his school and the other parents at the gate would have reasonably assumed that Mike was his dad. Chris' eyes lit up when Mike entered the room. Brody couldn't deny he was jealous and resented the shadow his friend cast over his family life. He'd figured out what was happening between Jess and Mike pretty quickly, although Jess had attempted to hide it. Chris, on the other hand, had no idea that his affection for 'Uncle Mike' hurt his father so much.

At first he wanted to kill Mike. It was all he could do not to rip his head off. The fact that they thought he hadn't noticed what was going on had irked him all the more but he just about managed to keep a lid on it until it was directly referred to at their barbecue that time. The way Mike's eyes flashed guilt and the way Jess had flinched made him launch himself at his friend in a way he was ashamed of now. Perhaps it was because he'd now accepted that he and Jess were over, or perhaps it was because he'd found Carrie, but he now felt no resentment towards Mike at all. If Brody had died out in Iraq, as they had presumed, the thought that Mike would step in to take care of his family struck Brody as an honourable deed. That Mike and Jess had fallen in love would've been a comfort then. Brody wouldn't have wanted her to be alone all her life. It was just that in all the mess and trauma of coming home, being what he was meant to be was suddenly even more impossible because his place at the table was taken. It felt like a betrayal too far.

Now Mike would feel like he was the one who had been betrayed. One of his own, his best pal, a soldier he'd fought alongside - guilty of something like this. Brody had given Mike the green light the last time he saw him. "You can keep taking care of them, if you like. Cos I can't right now.", he'd said. Brody shook his head grimly at the way those words must be echoing through Mike's ears right now.

Monster. Terrorist. Jihadist.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite his miserable train of thought Brody had fallen asleep, slumped against the wall. As he awoke several different images swam in front of his eyes, disorienting him. The cuts on Carrie's wrists, Dana yelling about spilt milk, flames in the hearth at the cabin. It took several moments for the tang of burning from Langley, which still clung to his hair and skin, to bring him back to the present, to allow him to recall where he was. And why.

The backpack Carrie had handed him was just off to his right. It had been heavy on the trek here and he had been so tired when he arrived at the cabin she'd marked on the map that he'd tossed it down without examining the contents. He hadn't looked about the cabin, either, preferring just to stop a while, collapsing on to the floor, waiting for everything to stop spinning, trying to catch up with himself. It was still dark outside, it had been the moonlight he'd seen in the window before. He was colder now than ever. He rooted around in the bag. Maps, a compass, bottled water, the bundles of cash he'd seen when Carrie had pulled open her 'rainy day' trunk in the lock up. He found a sachet of something, one of those glucose preparations that marathon runners and the army carry. He bit into it and sucked down the contents. There was a tightly packed, lightweight sleeping bag, the state of the art type they'd use in the Marines, which he unravelled and got into, his legs creaking as he moved.

Carrie was awesome. He wondered about the scrapes she'd been in, the circles she moved in that meant that she had an alternate identity, emergency supplies, a huge amount of cash and a safe-house across the border all ready to go, at the drop of a hat. He had learnt a while ago not to underestimate her but he marvelled at her professionalism. She was basically a spy, party to all kinds of classified information, mixing with all kinds of heinous individuals. Heinous individuals like him, he guessed. How had they wound up so involved with each other? Didn't she know better than that?

Then his fingers brushed its cold edge. He took it out of the bag. A pistol. There would be ammo inside the bag, he thought. He stared at it. Then put it back in the bag swiftly, it unsettled him. He resolved that he needed get some proper rest before deciding what to do next, he knew he still wasn't thinking straight.

"I'm going to clear your name, Brody.", Carrie had said when he left her in tears on that track. He didn't see how this was remotely possible but he knew Carrie enough to understand that she would _not_ let it drop. Being a lone voice at the CIA, trying to convince her colleagues of Brody's guilt hadn't worked out too well for her before. Now she'd be suddenly swearing blind that he was innocent this time, he feared the worst. He regretted the impact he had had on her life. The first time he had landed her in hospital. _ Knowingly_. She'd let them fry her brain, for god's sake. Carrie now claimed that it was all worth it since it had meant she could take Nazir down. Brody wasn't so sure.

Nazir was gone but he'd either orchestrated this last genius act to punish Brody for his betrayal of him, or else there was already another figurehead in place who knew all about him. Probably both. It had been more than just revenge for betraying the cause, Brody knew that. Nazir had professed to love Brody like a son, had entrusted Isa to him and welcomed him into the comfort of Islam. Carrie said that Nazir had used these tools, his own son amongst them, to put Brody back together as someone else, after first tearing him apart, erasing crucial parts of who he had originally been. It wasn't just personal, Brody was a rare commodity, years in the making, that had been deployed to maximum effect. The idea that a politician, an ex-Marine, a war hero, _one of their own boys_ could be turned, could strike so lethally from the_ inside_, would terrify the US and its allies like never before.

Brody saw that he had been a pawn for years, whether he'd known it or not. The US military, Nazir, Carrie, the CIA and now whoever had succeeded Abu Nazir - they had all used him at some stage. And now he was spent. There was hardly anything else left for himself. He was done.


	4. Chapter 4

Brody hunkered down in his sleeping bag, warmer now, so desperate to sleep. He wished she was beside him. The realisation that she wasn't coming with him as planned had crept into his mind slowly, as they drove away from the copy shop in silence. He had watched her frown in the mirror, saw her wrestling with it. He knew what she had chosen. He wouldn't try to change her mind. The pair of them together were more likely to be found. He doubted that her escape bag of tricks contained more than a few days worth of her medication, anyway. She thought of everything except how to look after herself. It was best that she go back, he only ever brought her trouble, although she did seem to like it. This was his mess, even though he knew she didn't see it like that. She thought she could be more effective back at the CIA, catching the real perpetrators, and the second that idea had occurred to her, Brody knew it would consume her, much like her suspicion that Brody had been Nazir's agent had once consumed her. She glanced back at him in the rear view mirror, worried about how to break it to him.

They really had been so close. He was going to make it all up to her, atone for everything he had put her through, take care of her. Prove people like Saul wrong. Be a good person again. It had been so cruel to let him think he was getting a second chance. Too good to be true.

Carrie had promised that it wasn't a goodbye but she had kissed him sweetly like it was exactly that.

He thought back to when he first kissed her, and what a difference there was between that and the last time. How much water had flown under the bridge since then. It was after Walker's memorial, after he'd attacked Mike in the back yard, in front of everybody. He had busted his hand on Mike's face and taken off, still furious but already ashamed, even in the first few seconds afterwards. Brody had wanted to hide out somewhere, far from everyone and everything, and found himself in a bar that he used to know. He'd been tormenting himself with images of Walker. Hitting Mike had brought that back even more. The first few drinks failed to take the edge off, Brody's limbs still fizzed and his heart was pounding. Maybe he'd drink some more, start a fight with the meanest-looking guy in the bar and get himself arrested. Back in a cell he'd be right at home and unable to cause any further damage. After another couple of shots, he felt the alcohol suddenly kick in. It was still early, it would be a long night, he could blot it all out but he'd be fit for nothing tomorrow. Except he had to present to Langley again, he remembered. To take a god-damned polygraph test. There was no way he'd pass.

He'd seen Carrie again at Hamid's interrogation. He had been really, just..._grateful..._he thought the right word was, to see her again but she was odd with him, like she refused to acknowledge that they'd met at the church group. Why was she being so business-like? He thought they'd made friends, however brief their chat had been. He wanted to talk with her again, see that broad smile spread across her face. Then she showed him who was being interviewed in the other room and all those thoughts abandoned him.

The son of a bitch sitting there in cuffs had beaten Brody within an inch of his life on several occasions. Hamid was the most sadistic of his guards and Brody recalled that he really came into his own when he had another guard on duty with him, approaching it rather like a team sport. His blood ran cold at the thought of him being in the US, under arrest but afforded all his human rights, being fed, watered, kept clean. Brody scoffed and recalled how Hamid would piss on Brody's head to revive him after a beating. Estes had later graciously granted Brody the audience with his tormentor after he laid it on thick about needing to regain his self respect and look the man in the eye now that the tables were turned. That was bullshit, Brody had always planned to inflict as much damage on the motherfucker as he could before they could pull him off of him.

And so he had called Carrie from the bar that night. Mostly to see if he could get out of the meeting tomorrow, but also just to hear a friendly voice for a change. She said she would come over to the bar. He didn't think she would turn up, he was just glad to have excused himself from the polygraph. He was now free to wallow in his hangover tomorrow, if Jess let him.

But she did show up. And she was a vision. It was a pleasure to be with her. She smiled as much as she drank, and she drank _a lot_. He was ahead of her but she made a valiant effort to catch up. Brody forgot the events of the day, the state he was in, until she pointed out his busted knuckles. He asked her why she had acted weird at Hamid's interrogation and she had replied something to the effect that she was only allowed to seek counselling through the Agency, in case she compromised any national secrets. Huh. But then she acknowledged that they had shared a special moment that evening and that she had considered it something private. 'Heightened' she said it was, because of the rain. Brody smiled at her.

And there it was again, the hope she had made him feel outside that church.

Could she be flirting with him? Or was that wishful thinking? Brody was kind of out of practice in these matters. Not that he'd really ever been much of a player, he'd only ever really had eyes for Jess. Maybe it was just the thrill of being genuinely in conversation with someone who knew _how it was_. Maybe it was just the effect her huge eyes were having on him. Probably it was just the bourbon distorting his view of things, he decided, shrugging off the thought. Looking back, he suspected that strictly speaking, he started to fall right there, sat opposite her on his bar stool with his hand packed in ice. He hadn't recognized it though, he'd been far too drunk for any such insight.

It wasn't until they'd stumbled back to her car laughing at something stupid and he looked at her properly again that he realised he couldn't let her drive off and leave him standing in a parking lot alone again. She said something to him about Hamid but he wasn't really listening. When she fell quiet and looked him square in the eye he found himself suddenly rushing at her lips, hands all over her, before he really knew what he was doing. That sudden rush of lust had surprised him. He hadn't thought himself capable of that any more. Then _she_ surprised _him_, kissing him right back just as hard. They held on to one another, staggering backwards against the car door.

So, she _had_ been flirting with him. They fucked on the back seat of her car. It happened real fast. One second she was pulling him through the door on top of her, still kissing him hungrily, the next he was inside her, their eyes locked together all the while. It was fast and urgent, a little rough but not in a bad way. Not in a dark way, not in the way that had upset Jess. Just in the sense that they couldn't have waited, gone somewhere a little more private. Something had taken over them and it had to be right there and then. He and Carrie had laughed afterwards, kissed some more. He felt like their bond had been sealed.

They finally broke apart and sat up on the back seat, straightening themselves up. A little awkwardly, Carrie tugged her dress back down while he refastened his fly, their eyes meeting again almost apologetically before she collapsed into his shoulder sniggering and they burst out laughing all over again. He would have liked to spend the night with her but she didn't invite him back. He resolved to quit while he was ahead, thanked her for the bourbon and her "uh, _company_" arched his eyebrow, kissed her one last time and climbed out of the car, trailing around the parking lot a couple of times before managing to locate his own vehicle.

He slept a couple of hours on his own back seat, until it got bright outside and he woke with the mother of all headaches, just about sober enough to drive home. On their way out, Jess and the kids caught him sloping into the house, shades on to protect his delicate eyeballs. If looks could kill - from Jess and Dana both.

Brody had gulped down some coffee, showered and shaved - he had to be at Langley in an hour and a half and he needed to sober up. He had decided to take the test after all, he was feeling better. Carrie had restored something in him.

He balled up the side of his sleeping bag, resting his forehead against the cool material, imagining with all his might that it could be the back of her head. She had tried to tell him she loved him at the cabin a couple of days ago and he had stopped her short. He hated himself for that now. At the time, he didn't want to hear her say it. He didn't want it confirmed. He knew that she did, that much was obvious, but he didn't want those words out there, not while she was still trying to decide whether they were going to make a go of it together, or not. If he had let her say it, those words would hang in the air, in his ears and his memory and should she eventually choose the CIA, this cause she was fighting, over him, well, those words would have haunted him forever. Once she had said it, she couldn't take it back and he wouldn't have been able to forget it. It would kill him. She seemed to understand him, and rephrased her sentence accordingly. Now, he felt like he had robbed her, robbed them both of a moment that would have brought them solace at a time like this. Brody wished he could replay her voice in his head saying those three words. He had said it to her, in a roundabout way, when they said goodbye on the track in the woods. But it wasn't a declaration, it wasn't spontaneous - he had said it more to reassure her, so she would remember him clearly saying it once she went back to DC and was surrounded by the poison they would be spouting about Nicholas Brody, America's most wanted. They would say he manipulated her, that he played her and he just wanted her to remember, no matter what they said, this _was_ love. It _was_.


	5. Chapter 5

Carrie had nearly doubled back several times. She even pulled in at one point to turn the car around. She could still catch up with him, if she chose to. She wanted to. She wanted to so badly. Her heart had broken when Brody let go of her and stalked off into the trees. Her heart had broken _again_. He hadn't looked back.

But no, she had to go back to Washington. She figured that she was the only person who could fix all this, and she would fix it for him. Otherwise everything they'd been through had been for nothing. She straightened up in the driver's seat, wiped her eyes, blew her hair out of her face unsteadily and gripped the steering wheel hard.

Her whole body hurt back at the dirt track where she left him. She promised him that it wasn't the end for them. He wasn't convinced. He seemed resigned to it. Her chest ached, like someone had punched her repeatedly. Even now, her forearms throbbed, just from the need to cradle his face in her hands so she could hold him still, stop him from looking away when she told him that everything was going to be alright.

Her cell. 17 missed calls. Saul. Maggie. A number she didn't recognize. They'd left her voicemails. Carrie knew she couldn't pick them up just yet, if Saul was looking for her he could have them trace her phone and they'd be able to tell if she'd accessed her messages. She wouldn't be home for hours yet and she'd have to come up with something good to explain her absence. Maggie must be frantic right now. She and her dad must think that Carrie was dead. She'd call them soon.

The auditorium had been completely destroyed, the blast had been huge. She recalled the faces in the rows as she'd waited for the memorial to start, as she'd watched Brody escort Cynthia Walden in. Her colleagues, her friends...they must all be gone. They must be. Estes had been at the podium when she left. It was his speech about Walden that had Brody glowering, the whole reason Carrie had given him the nod and got him out of there. What if she hadn't? She'd had her battles with David, but once they'd been close, inappropriately close. He was on track to become Director of the CIA. He had a little kid, for Christ's sake.

They'd missed it again, _she_ had missed something. Again. They'd been so complacent after getting Nazir, how could they not have seen something coming? Everyone she knew had been in that auditorium. Were 10% of them likely to have survived? 5%, even? How had she let this happen?

She knew how. She'd been busy with Brody, she'd taken her eye off the ball.

After everything, after he'd helped Nazir dispatch Walden in order to save her, after he had left his family and pitched up on her doorstep with tears in his eyes she still doubted him. More than just doubted him. It had been the first thing she thought of once she came to after the blast. She'd held a fucking gun to his head and had been ready to pull the trigger. The man she loved. The man she'd pledged her future to just five minutes before. That was how complicated this whole thing was. That was the knife-edge they danced on still. No, it wasn't complicated...it was _twisted_, more like. But she couldn't help it. She'd done complicated before. Carrie and David Estes had been complicated, though mercifully short lived. She regretted that it had cost him his family, it had never been worth that. Twisted was working out far harder.

Her and Brody was something else entirely. He scared her sometimes. She had told him so. He had looked a bit hurt by that but it was the truth. Carrie knew that he hadn't cooperated with Nazir just to get him to set her free. For years, Brody had been out to get Walden and those like him. At one point he would have been capable of something like Langley, but not now. She knew that now.

Her chin twitched involuntarily, her bottom lip wobbled and she bit down on it hard, tasting blood.

"This wasn't me. _It wasn't_", he had repeated at her, over and over, in Saul's office. She had looked right into his eyes and believed him. It couldn't have been him. She remembered how stunned, how overwhelmed he had seemed when she had told him that she had chosen him, that she wanted that clean slate they had talked about. The fact that, almost in the same breath, she could accuse him of _this_ bothered her.

Carrie wondered what Roya Hammad knew. She'd given Carrie the lead that resulted in Abu Nazir's death. On purpose? Or had she just been the sacrificial lamb who slipped up, a clue laid intentionally, this bigger objective at play? Carrie started to think about the interrogative techniques she would use in her next encounter with Roya. She would be better prepared than last time. She would break her this time.

This was good. This made sense. _This_ was what she was heading back for. This is why she had resolved to abandon Brody.

Her mania was rising. She hadn't taken her medication in a while and the stress and exhaustion was getting to her. She knew that she needed to ride this wave though, she felt that it would give her the edge to get through this. She sped down the freeway, only taking her foot off the gas when she realized that getting a ticket, getting picked up by a traffic camera, would place her far from Langley in the aftermath if the bomb. She had to be canny now. For both of them.


	6. Chapter 6

Saul felt as though the bottom had fallen out of the world. He had watched Abu Nazir's body being committed to the deep today, knowing he'd remember the date forever. A solemn occasion, the end of an era. He was wise enough to know that the next era had already begun, even before the last one had ended, but he wished Carrie had been there to mark it with him all the same. It would have been fitting.

Then he got the call.

He didn't believe it until his car pulled up at Langley, waved past the blockade. He scrambled past the military ambulances, the firefighters, the forensics people already at the site. Emergency tents had been erected. The smoke was lifting. Total devastation, charred and leveled, a fresh hell. The most awful smell. Somebody spoke to him. He had no idea who she was. She kept asking him questions. He was irritated by her, that was until she explained that Saul was the most senior CIA officer on site and she needed his clearance for certain things. There was no one else.

She led him to the hall and his knees nearly gave way. Rows of body bags. Some of them didn't look full. She gave him the stats. It was like her voice was coming to him from the bottom of a well, he struggled to understand the words. Twenty-something people taken to hospital, many of those in critical condition, not expected to make it. Very few walking wounded.

She had a list. The names of those who had been taken way in ambulances. Carrie's name wasn't there. He smoothed his hair repeatedly over the back of his head in an unconscious movement. He always did it, it was borne of stress. That and removing his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. He always did that when he was losing a fight with Mira. Or when Carrie was being impossible.

There was a second list. Those amongst the dead that they had already managed to identify. He swallowed hard. No Carrie Matthison.

Missing, presumed dead.

He had already called Carrie's cell in the car over here and got no answer. He tried again. The same. The third and fourth time, he left tearful voicemails.

"_A_ _more balanced life_". That's what she said she wanted. That's what she thought she'd get with Nicholas Brody. That's what they had fought over this morning. The part she had played in catching Nazir had earnt Carrie her job back, the offer of a great step up in her career. A reward for the indignities she had suffered, for her unwavering commitment. Despite her illness and the unconventional way she achieved things, he had argued her case and on balance, the results spoke for themselves. She was in, and he was very proud of her. But she was seriously considering giving it up. For that devious son of a bitch Brody. She had made Saul lose his temper. He had said some horrible things. He knew she took it badly when he criticized her but he had wanted to snap her out of it. Brody would always be the man who had put on a suicide vest. If Saul found out Brody had been wearing one today he didn't know what he would do. He suddenly didn't want to be right on this. Saul consulted the lists again. Brody's name was not down either.

They had asked Saul if he felt up to helping them identify some of the bodies. He did not feel up to it at all, but he had accepted anyway. If he hadn't, then somebody else would just have to do it. The loved ones of the dead would just have their agonising wait prolonged. So he had agreed. His voice grew weaker with every bag they unzipped, every time he braced himself for blond hair, until he could barely speak at all. Saul had seen horrors before, but nothing like this. He sank onto his haunches. Saul had been at the CIA for over thirty years and he had seen many bright people come and go. Some were his friends, some had definitely not been. Most of them he at least respected. Many of them had died today. Such unspeakable loss.

But if Carrie had gone too he suspected it would also be the end for him. He blinked back tears. His dearest friend.

As he picked his way through the rubble, searching for any sign of her, his phone rang. He fumbled in his pocket, nearly dropping it in his haste to get it to his ear. Mira. Thank god. It was so good to hear her voice but the line was bad. He spoke to her softly, he couldn't seem to find the breath. She told him how sorry she was, how glad she was that he was safe. She said that she would come back for him. He told her he thought that Carrie was gone. "Oh, Saul", she whispered, "I'll be there soon, just hold on." He hung up, closed his eyes and planted a small kiss on his phone.

That nameless woman appeared again. They had reason to suspect that the blast came from a vehicle stationed close to the auditorium. Saul asked if they knew who that vehicle was registered to. What kind of device was used. They hadn't got that far yet. He fully expected to hear Congressman Brody's name when they did. If he was correct, and if Carrie had been caught up in all this, he only prayed that it had all been over before she knew that Brody had been responsible. He knew he had to keep an open mind at this stage but he had this awful feeling.

He paced the hall. A couple more body bags had been added to the grid in the short time he had been away. He started to pray, muttering the words under his breath.

Someone behind him said his name.

He would never dare ask for another miracle again in his life.

There she was, just standing there. A few cuts on her face, looking pale and drawn, but totally fine. She was a little sooty and he could see tracks that her tears had cut through the dirt on her cheeks. They held each other so tight that he felt lightheaded. "I was in your office at the window. I'd gone there to think. I saw it happen, Saul.", she offered. "I must have hit the wall, I didn't know where I was when I woke up". He rubbed her arm.

She let go of him and fell quiet. He watched the impact from the grid of body bags hit Carrie. It was awful watching somebody else see it for the first time. "Oh, god", she whispered, pushing her hair behind her ear with a trembling hand.

He had to ask. It was important for the investigation but he wanted to avoid upsetting her further. He knew how fragile she could be and he still felt bad about their fight this morning. He didn't want to seem at all '_I __told_ _you so.'_

"And Brody?" He asked softly, narrowing his eyes. She couldn't see him clench his fist as he had said his name.

Carrie looked at Saul and frowned for what seemed like an age. "I...I don't know, Saul". She shook her head and looked down at the floor.

He saw her chin wobble. He pulled her into his arms and smoothed her hair. "It's okay. It's okay, Carrie. You're here and that's all that matters. Let's get you to the doctor.".

He wanted to get her away from there before she caught on to his growing suspicion of Brody. She didn't need to hear that right now. He knew she wasn't stupid, that she must be arriving at the same conclusions as him. There was no need to label the point.

He made her leave. Made her promise to get some rest. She said that Maggie and Frank were waiting up for her. He'd call her tomorrow and they would go from there.

Saul took a deep breath, hung his head and resumed his prayer.


	7. Chapter 7

Saul had sent her away, despite her protestations. He'd had her checked over again, just to be sure, and she had hurried away from the medics in case they spotted how much her hands were shaking. She needed to take a pill. The medics hadn't shown any concern, they had so much more on their plate elsewhere. They'd given her some sedatives, told her to rest, gave her the normal spiel about concussion and shock. Saul insisted there was nothing more she could do there, that she'd be of much more use to him once she'd rested. Carrie sensed he was keeping something from her. She felt so guilty, for lying to him about Brody, about where she'd been, for not being there for him during his utter despair. He hugged her tight and said that the fact she was alive was enough for him. She had tried to get him to go home too but he wouldn't come out of that hall, didn't want to leave the bodies. Like he was keeping a vigil over them.

Carrie had done what she was told, for once. She got out of there. Operations officers were now thin on the ground but she needed to get away, just to drown it out, before Brody's name cropped up again and she freaked. She knew it was only a matter of time before Saul realised that Carrie had not been out cold for hours on his office floor after all. He was still in shock at the moment but once he paused to review matters, when he noted that they'd still not turned up any sign of Brody, she knew he'd be at her.

She had spoken to Maggie, assured them she was fine and resisted all calls to go stay at their place. She fobbed her off by saying she was with Saul, helping him through it. Her father had wept. Carrie couldn't get a straight word out of him and she'd cried too. Maggie would have to give him something to make him sleep. Carrie loved them, but she just wanted to be alone right now.

Back at home, she took her pill. And the sedative. She had realised that she couldn't afford to fall to pieces right now. Brody was relying on her. She drew her bedroom curtains, wondered how he was bearing up, all alone and trying to make sense of the past few days.

She reached over and touched the spot on her bed where he had slept, the night he had come to her door and made it clear that he needed her. He intimidated her sometimes, the way he looked right into her eyes, so bold. Like that time in the woods, when he had stood so close she could smell the previous night's liquor on him. "_So. Are we going to try this sober?_". She hadn't answered him, walking on ahead feeling alarmed and conflicted.

That first night at the cabin had been one thing, one _ridiculous_ thing, but what he had been proposing then was entirely another. Different leagues of inappropriateness.

When she had gone to meet him at the bar it was with the sole objective of talking him into taking the polygraph the next day. But he'd shown another side to himself than the haunted figure in pyjamas she'd been watching on secret camera for days and it had intrigued her. His smile was easy, genuine. Not the false one she'd seen him practise in his bathroom mirror. It started in his eyes, spread all around his face, played on his mouth and even when it had all but passed, she noticed that his eyes still twinkled like the tail of a comet that lingered long after its mass had shot overhead. She hadn't seen _that_ in the grainy footage of the Brody household. She stuck around to see what else he might show her.

It hadn't gone quite to plan. She'd stayed in control, just, despite drinking a gallon of bourbon, gulping at glasses of water from the pitcher on the bar when Brody went to the bathroom, drawing a conspiratorial wink from the bartender. But through the fog of drink, by the time she remembered what she was there to do and had gone for it, slipping him the tip about Hamid's death, it didn't seem to register. Brody was either too drunk or too distracted by what was going to happen next.

She hadn't meant for it to happen but it had. She considered whether it had damaged her position and concluded that the whole surveillance of Brody thing was enough to get her fired anyway, so this last little episode was just a minor detail. Quite an enjoyable detail actually, she smirked, as she reclined on her back seat after he had left her. More enjoyable than the past few risky encounters with men in bars, for sure. And she was something of a connoisseur, so she would know. Nothing that Carrie ever did surprised herself anymore. She was used to it.

But events at the cabin had surprised her. She had surpassed herself this time and gone too far even for her roller-coaster tastes.

She was alone in the woods with a man she suspected of terrorism, she didn't know his true motives and she didn't know if he suspected hers. She had her gun ready, just in case, but still found it perfectly acceptable to do what they did. Jesus.

She had allowed herself a brief secret smile when he had entered the room at Langley, recalling the parking lot incident. Feeling herself start to blush, she checked herself in case Saul noticed. Brody had been so cool during the polygraph test. He aced it. Carrie was flustered, she had been so sure he was guilty and this was her big chance to prove it going up in smoke. Indignant, she threw in the last question about whether he'd been faithful to Jess. He lied in reply. Bare-faced. But the machine didn't blip, even remotely. Maybe he didn't consider last night to have constituted infidelity but Carrie was more liberal than most and _she _certainly did. Far from accept, as Saul advised, that Brody was innocent and that her suspicion of him had been unfounded, it dawned on Carrie that she was dealing with one serious customer here. It had antagonized her massively.

So how she found herself bringing him to the cabin, screwing him again, she just did not know. She was feeling irresponsible, giving herself over to the tequila and to the way he made her laugh. It was her condition, she told herself. Brody had shrugged off her questions about the polygraph, refused to talk about anything real. They had escaped together, and on some level they were both trying to escape themselves that weekend.

The next day, however, he had suddenly been ready to address certain things and he caught her off guard when he suggested that they could be on to something together. She found herself sharing things with him, taking him to see the waterfall that had previously only belonged to her and Maggie. Telling him about what happened with her translator. What if he was innocent, like Saul said? She could be passing up a rare opportunity of something genuine here because of her hardheaded conviction that she was always right. Sure, he was married and he was a seriously damaged individual...but Carrie had never ever done things simply, so why quibble?

She couldn't believe she was even entertaining it. This guy was the American prisoner of war who had been turned, he had to be.

But she had gone with it, regardless. She kept forgetting what he was supposed to be. Maybe he had, too. That night he had bared his scars to her and when he pulled her towards him she panicked for a moment, wondering what on earth she was doing. He was deadly serious, totally sober. She thought about stopping him, bolting, until his lips found the sweet spot on her throat that made her eyes roll. All reason was lost at that point.

She was not sure that it had ever returned.


	8. Chapter 8

Jess sat on Chris' bed, dumbfounded.

Chris had cried himself to sleep. He had suddenly got up from the sofa, ran to his room and launched himself face down into his pillow, sobbing. Jess saw that he had tried to contain it, while they watched the news footage from Langley together in silence, aghast. He was at an age where people kept telling him he'd soon be an adult and so he tried to act it, but the little kid he still was kept poking through, frustrating and embarrassing him at every turn. He was still her baby. Her simple, straight forward, loving little boy. Hers and Brody's. But mostly hers.

How was any of this even possible? Were they saying all these things about him because he was a Muslim now? Jess still didn't understand _how_ Brody was a Muslim, but he'd gone crazy when she'd thrown his Qur'an on the ground, saying she had desecrated it, asking her to show some respect. Dana said it was true. He didn't seem much like a Muslim, or how she imagined a Muslim would be, in any case. She knew she shouldn't generalize but her life had been blighted by these issues, that war. Those people - the type of fanatics responsible for bombings and torture. They _were_ all Muslims, right? Dana would have yelled at her if she dared say this out loud. It wasn't considered enlightened to say it, she knew, but as fas as she could see, she was right. They'd taken her Brody and returned an empty shell eight years later. He'd never been particularly religious before. Church had been more her thing, how she had been brought up.

It wasn't just because of the Islam thing. There was the video. He was wearing his uniform, for god's sake, explaining why he'd done what he did. A suicide tape. When had he made that? How long had he been planning it? Why had he dragged them all through this past year if he knew he was going to do this? Why had he bothered to re-enter his children's lives just to wreck them? She had suspected at times that he had gone insane. When he killed the deer. When she caught him talking to himself. When he jumped at shadows. When he cried in his sleep and nearly broke her arms.

This meant that he was dead. She had thought he was dead before, before she admitted it to anyone. She had basically spent eight years, what had been left of her youth really, admonishing anyone who referred to her as a widow. Stubbornly refusing the death benefits from the military for seven of those years, keeping the hope alive. She had openly criticised Helen Walker for giving up on Tom and remarrying so soon. She knew this made her a massive hypocrite, since she had such strong feelings for Mike, but she had even held him at arm's length until those seven years were up and Brody was officially considered dead by the military. Helen Walker would know exactly what Jess was going through now. How Jess had pitied her when the manhunt for Tom was on. The thought of people pitying Jess, the woman who had been proud to have become a Congressman's wife despite her initial misgivings, made her stomach turn. Perhaps, even worse, people would blame her, would shun the kids for their association with Brody. Or at the very least for having lived alongside him and not noticed, not prevented this. Brody couldn't have done this. He couldn't have.

The agents had come to the house and interviewed them all together, Jess wouldn't let them speak to the kids alone. All sorts of questions about how Brody had been when they last saw him, if he'd called since, if he'd left them letters. Whether he had seemed to be saying goodbye. They had taken stuff from the house, some of Brody's things. He really didn't have many 'things'. He hadn't really had enough time back at home in order to accumulate anything, and he didn't show much interest in the stuff he used to like before Iraq. She had been putting clothes aside for him over the past few days so he could collect them when he came by. Now that they were separated.

Is this why they had separated? Of course she knew it wasn't, it was because things weren't working between them. But things hadn't been working for months, or ever, actually, if she was honest. So was this why had they separated just now? Was it because he was going to do this? Had he said goodbye on purpose? Told Mike that he was free to be with them - had Brody known that it was going to come to this?

She had thought it was to do with Carrie. Something had been going on for a few weeks, maybe months. He lied about her having been fired and locked up in a mental hospital. He'd come home, he wouldn't come home. He'd show up in the middle of the night saying he'd been fighting, looking like shit, hand in a bandage. He had fed her lines about working with the CIA, said that he couldn't discuss the detail because of 'national security', that this explained his absences, why they had to move to the safe house, why she and the kids had been under armed guard going stir crazy. If he was a terrorist, like they were saying, why were the CIA taking care of his family? Nothing made sense. Her head spun.

But he had been about to give her an explanation, the night he had decided to leave them. She stopped him, told him she didn't care any more. He had been about to confess to something. He kind of insinuated that Carrie the crazy CIA woman wasn't so crazy after all. That the things she had said to Dana before they had her arrested had some truth to them. Jess had stopped him, it was too little too late. If she had failed in keeping her family together, and she had finally accepted - _after nine long years_ - that she had, then she didn't see why she had to be burdened with his confession. If they had stayed together, managed to make things work, then she would have stood by him 100%. But if he was going, going off to Carrie, then let her take care of him, put up with his moods, his secrets, his violence. Carrie must know all about it and if she still wanted him despite all that, then maybe she deserved him. She had just wanted it to be over.

Except it wasn't. There were reporters outside the house again. Much more even than when Brody had first come home. The CIA or FBI, or whoever they were, had said that they would wait outside the house and keep them away tonight. Until they had interviewed them properly, they had said. She was going to have to explain her last conversation with her husband to them. After that Jess guessed they'd be on their own. How was she going to protect Chris and Dana from this?

Thank god she had Mike. He was sitting out on the back porch, having a cigarette. He had been very quiet since all this broke. He was probably wondering why he spent his whole life picking up the pieces left behind by Brody, Jess thought. The past few days had been odd, kind of unreal. Brody had left her. Calmly, kind of amicably, by mutual agreement. _Finally_, she guessed. Mike had called, told her that Brody had been to see her, what he had said. Just letting her know that if she needed him, he'd be there, she only had to say the word. She had said the word. He hadn't moved in yet. Jess had only just told the kids that their father had moved out, it was all too soon.

Chris had taken the news of their separation badly, was refusing to eat. Jess was going to have Brody to talk to him, make it okay. Dana hadn't been surprised. She had still been pissed at Brody. Pissed at everyone, really. Mike had come round for coffee the following day and Dana burst through the kitchen door, took one look at him, glanced at her mother and scoffed "Oh, hey, Uncle Mike, have you come to stay in the spare room? Oh, wait, we don't have one. Still, my dad is gone, have you heard? Maybe we could squeeze you in. Mom, what do you say?". Jess could have killed her, right then. Dana had taken off after that. Mike had hugged Jess and told her that Dana would come round eventually, once things settled and she realised she still had her dad, she still had Jess, that things were just going to be a little different from now on. He was confident that they'd work it out. Jess had kissed him insistently in the kitchen before Chris arrived home from school and sat down immediately to play his video game.

Dana had reacted strangely to this whole thing. Jess knew that Dana adored her father. Jess felt alienated by it sometimes. Even though she had encouraged it herself the whole time Brody had been missing. From when she was very little, when Brody had only just left for Iraq, they had this ritual of kissing Dana's photo of her daddy goodnight before Jess turned Dana's bedroom light out. Jess' part in the ritual had been dispensed with when Dana had reached about fourteen years old, but she knew Dana still did it, even now. Dana kept the tattered photo of Brody in her nightstand. This adoration had even weathered the storm of her recent unbearable teenage behaviour. Not much else had. It was still there, deep down, even though she had been at Brody's throat since he'd let her down over the hit and run. Today must have been so painful for her.

Dana had stood up in front of the agents and announced that this whole thing was_ bullshit_. She had her father's mouth alright. Jess suspected that she knew more than she let on, she definitely understood more about this situation than Jess did. Which wouldn't be hard. She alluded to the time Carrie had appeared at their house. That same incident Brody had mentioned to Jess the night he left. Once the federal agents had gone, she had shut herself in her room and refused to talk to Jess or Mike.

Jess spared a thought for all the other kids who were coping with the loss of a parent tonight. 192 people had died at Langley, they had said on the news, many of them would have been parents. She felt sick.


	9. Chapter 9

Brody woke with a jolt. He had been dreaming again.

A huge explosion. The air pulsing, throwing him backwards, a spray of shattered glass peppering his face. White heat. The sound of metal screeching, the ground rumbling. And then it starts, the frantic search. Skipping over fallen girders which are too hot to touch, dashing through plumes of purple-grey smoke. Stumbling on rubble. Moving so fast he can hardly feel the floor. Heart bursting right out of his chest. Yelling, _screaming_ a name. But he's not calling for Isa this time, he's shouting Carrie's name. The wreckage is that of Langley. Suddenly he hears his own name, quietly but spoken with a certain persistence, a scolding tone. "_Nicholas_". There was Nazir, crouching in the dark corner of the cabin, his eyes aflame.

Brody sat up, pulling his knees to his chest, bowing his head, rocking and sucking in air rythmically. He had to be careful not to hyperventilate. Once his heart had settled, he got to his feet to stretch the adrenalin out of his muscles. Same drill as ever, after a nightmare.

It was getting light finally. His watch said nearly 6.30am. He approached the small window and peered out. He hadn't been able to tell last night if there were any other buildings close by and so he hadn't used his flashlight or even considered lighting a fire. He could see now that he had no neighbours. It was miserable outside, raining hard, but he needed to pee and the cabin had no bathroom. He stood in the fresh air, raised his face to the sky and let the rain hit him, wishing he could wash everything off himself, start over again clean.

It was time to check out his cabin. It was nothing like Carrie's, he noted sadly. It looked as though nobody had been inside for years and the furnishings were older than he was. There was a gas stove, but it wasn't connected to anything. A sink, no running water. He opened a cupboard in the kitchen unit. Cans. Lots of them. Soup, beans, some kind of stew. Sachets of what he decided was a protein powder, the type of thing body builders drank. He was relieved to realise he wouldn't starve just yet. He wasn't going to be picky and look for the 'best consumed before' dates on the labels. The bottom cupboard was full of bottled water. He thanked Carrie again telepathically, hoped she could feel it. Brody was impressed, he had a full larder and he could forget about having to hunt rabbits and squirrels for a while. Who needed Marine survival training? Even so, he knew he couldn't stay here long. He would have to get away, far away. He took some beans and some water. Carrie's bag contained a Swiss Army knife and there was a spoon on the counter which he cleaned on his shirt. It tasted pretty foul, but he had eaten much worse in his time.

He had so much to thank her for. She had saved him in so many ways. Right before the bomb went off she had given him the answer he had been hoping for and he'd felt so humbled that he had to surpress a sob, had wanted to sink to his knees and weep. How could she have chosen a life with him after everything he had done to her? How could she love him that much? He had nearly destroyed her. Wilfully. Spitefully. Sometimes he thought that maybe he was a monster.

He had only been able to do it because she had hurt him so much. He had let his guard down with her, started to let her inside, started to trust in another human being again and then she ripped it away viciously the very next day. She can't have known what it had taken for him to have gotten to that point, how special it made her to have been the one to convince him to take the leap. But she had been playing him all the while. She had seen through him, saw him coming and she had been smarter than him. That hurt his heart, hurt his pride and poured oceans of accelerant on his fury.

He had woken up on the floor of Carrie's cabin, partially clothed, partially covered in a woollen blanket and partially blinded by his hangover. She wasn't there. His right shoulder and the small of his back hurt him. He shifted and found one of his shoes and an empty tequila bottle to have been the culprits. He surveyed the room. It looked like a derailed train had passed right through it. He examined his memory and hadn't found much there at first. He sat up, back against the edge of the sofa, rubbing his eyes. He sure didn't feel like he had slept much. Then he realised that this was because he hadn't. Brody was visited by a series of X-rated flashbacks featuring his blond CIA friend. Oh.

"_Sergeant Brody, have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?_".

"Scratch my previous answer from the record please. Yes. Yes,_ I have_.". Multiple times.

He raised his eyebrows slowly as fragments from the night before came back at him. Things had really escalated, gotten out of hand. He was covered in scrapes and he recalled that she had bitten down on his shoulder at one point so hard that he swore. What, was his body not mangled enough already for her? He groaned, this was going to be awkward. He cast about for his jeans and found them across the other side of the room. He allowed himself a quick smile at this but then caught sight through the window of Carrie sitting down by the lake.

Brody sheepishly joined Carrie at the water's edge. They were on the same page, he knew it, she looked how he felt. He started to ramble on about how this had been wrong and he was relieved when she agreed with him quickly that they should leave. He snuck a peep at her while she was staring at the lake, wondering if she was in the habit of bringing men off to the woods like this. He hadn't met anyone quite like her before.

The water was so calm that it soothed his aching head to look at it, so he sat back in silence, grateful for the relief.


	10. Chapter 10

Brody hadn't called Jess. They hadn't gathered up their things and gone home like they said they would. There was no firm handshake and no "_let's never speak of this incident again_". They had just hung out, talked, took a walk. It was nice just being with her. She was a little different today, he thought. Less sure of herself. It could be the mighty hangover, he guessed. They had both sworn never to touch another drop in their lives. She seemed more vulnerable that day. Of course this only made him like her even more. She certainly didn't seem like she was in the mood for picking fights with white supremacists any more, he noted. Thank god for that.

He convinced her to stay another night, to see where all this was headed. He offered to help her to straighten up the cabin after 'hurricane Tequila' had struck, drawing a laugh from that wide smile. He pulled his t-shirt down at the neck to show her the mark on his left shoulder where she had bitten him. She acted incredulous but he knew she remembered. Another, slightly nervous, laugh followed.

Brody didn't have the energy to go back home and have the inevitable fight with Jess, anyway. This wasn't about settling a score, just because she had something going on with Mike Faber. This was about him throwing off the shackles of everyone and everything placing unreasonable demands on his troubled mind. He had just been released after eight years away, _of_ _course_ he was going to want to cut loose, get drunk and go off the rails a little. Right? He pushed all thoughts of home, of everything else, away entirely and just concentrated on what was right in front of him, in this moment. It felt like a luxury.

She had kissed the scars on his chest. Although the sight of it made him shudder with pleasure, he stopped her.

Scar tissue knits over wounds so that you are able to carry on. It closes over the sites of injuries so they don't hurt so much any more. But scar tissue is thick, it doesn't have nerve endings in it. You can't feel it if someone touches you in a place where you've already been hurt. He knew that she was only trying to make better what had happened to him. But she couldn't. He didn't want her to focus on what had already been. Brody liked being around Carrie because she let him feel the _now_ and made him feel that _now_ wasn't necessarily all a product of what had happened to him _then_. It followed that if the present wasn't dictated by the past, then the future wasn't either. This was the feeling of hope he got when he was with her. She made the now count for something and that made him think that he could still be a different person.

She looked uncertain. Not so brave now that they were doing this without the invisible cloak of alcohol. If she bit him tonight she'd be fully accountable. There was no pretending. He marvelled at her perfect skin opposite his mauled torso. He looked her in the eye while he slowly peeled her jeans over her hips and pulled her groin level with his, letting her feel just how much he wanted her.

Carrie flung her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, pulling him down onto the bed on top of her. It hadn't been as frantic as the night before, more steady and intense. The bed lurched as they moved together. Brody paused just to fix it all in his memory, he needed to be able to remember this overwhelming feeling of blessed peace clearly. Carrie had asked him if he was okay, if he wanted to stop, probably worried he was having an attack of conscience and that he was going to frustrate her. He could tell that she didn't want him to stop. They looked at each other. _Right_ at each other - _into_ each other, if that was at all possible. Brody decided then that he didn't ever want to look away.

Brody started up again, harder this time, and it wasn't long before he felt her breathless body begin to buckle beneath him. He heard her cry out. The noises she made were nearly enough to finish him off, but to distract himself he he bore all his weight on his right fist, clenching the pillow and hiding his face in her neck, unable to look at her again until she had calmed down. He teetered on the brink for a couple of seconds but managed to keep himself from falling over the edge. He didn't want this to be finished just yet. When Carrie had recovered, and her breathing had returned to normal, he touched her face and kissed her softly, his eyes smiling.

He said her name. The next time they neared the edge, they fell off together.


	11. Chapter 11

But things changed violently the next day.

Brody awoke feeling euphoric, hardly able to wait for the day to begin. He was torn between the desire to go outside and pray discreetly, to give thanks for this new development in his life, or to stay and watch Carrie sleep some more. In the end, he had stayed put, transfixed. The fairy dust that he had first inhaled along with all that bourbon in the bar a couple of nights ago had really taken hold yesterday and he reflected on the fact that he might be falling in love. He raised his eyebrows. This wasn't part of the plan, he had thought to himself.

Once Carrie had woken up too, the situation flipped upside down within a matter of minutes. Was he being paranoid? He had been beset by nightmares again last night, perhaps he still had the jitters. Had he heard her right? He rapidly searched for any conceivable explanation for what she had just said about the tea. There wasn't one. Suddenly, the realization that nothing was as it seemed dawned on him and it shook him to the core. It made his temples pulse and his knees shake. He held on to the bed just to make sure it existed. The utter idiocy of his having been fraternising with a fucking CIA agent on the trail of Abu Nazir hit home. Carrie wasn't just Carrie, just as sure as Brody wasn't really just Brody. Had he been thinking solely with his dick the past few days, or what? The recognition that, actually, it had been a whole lot more than that sunk in, which made it even more unnerving. _Of course she seems like she inexplicably knows you, you retard. She does know you. She's been studying you. She probably has a whole dossier on your favourite hot beverages, she knows the side of the bed you sleep on, your dumb sense of humor, maybe even that her biting you in the throes of passion would make you com_e. "Fuck me.", Brody whispered to himself when Carrie had conveniently ducked outside to look for some wood.

All the feelings of having been blessed, the hope that had crept into Brody over the weekend, suddenly drained out of the pit of his being, leaving behind only bile. How could she do this after they...after he...? He had confronted her on the porch, still half wanting her to convince him that he had it all wrong, so they could go back to how things had been yesterday. She couldn't and when he showed her the gun, she revealed her true colours.

It had shocked him that she knew so much, that she was so close to the truth. Was he really that easy to read? He hadn't thought so until now. She knew things about Isa. The sound of his name made him wince. She was suddenly defiant again, like she had been when she provoked that nazi guy in the bar that time. He challenged her, tossed her the gun. Brody knew he had to dig himself out of this hole, or everything was lost. He told her parts of truths. That he had known Nazir. How he had even come to love him. That he had converted to Islam. About Tom Walker. Some of it threw her, he could tell. It even felt kind of good to say certain things out loud for the first time. But he was careful. It struck him that she couldn't actually have had any hard evidence, or she wouldn't have resorted to this risky live action surveillance. If they had proof, he figured they would have taken him in by now. Or have taken him down. It had become hugely important to him to outsmart her on this, his pride had suffered an enormous dent because of the way she had taken his heart for a ride. He didn't confess to anything crucial. He knew that giving her just enough could explain some of her suspicions and that it might get him off the hook long enough to regroup, to assess the situation. Every way she came at him, he threw her off. Now that they were being up front about things, he felt he could match her.

She was just the same as the rest of them. Just another one of his tormentors. She just employed different methods.

When she had chased him to his car, backtracking wildly, he couldn't understand why. Carrie stood there, visibly upset, almost begging him to believe that she had felt what he had felt this weekend. That it had been real. "Fuck you, Carrie", was his reply. He felt that this summed it up nicely.

That night, back at home, he looked in on Chris, Dana and Jess. They were all sleeping. He felt guilt, but that wasn't why he broke down and cried on the sofa in the dark. He wept because he had been manipulated and tricked and even though he had discovered it it didn't change thing, because his heart had broken. The very second he had dared to connect with the real world again, with life, he had been slapped back down. He'd taken yet another beating. And he had to get back from that. She had induced an almost physical change in him and he needed to reverse it. Quickly. He would need to tap into all his hatred to do so. Luckily there was plenty there to use. He knew that he had sped away from that cabin infinitely more scarred than he had been when he arrived.

And that was how he did it, that was how he motivated himself and justified ruining Carrie's life. She had later apologized for her accusations at the cabin when the finger was firmly pointed at Tom. She had even been prepared for a reconciliation, he suspected, when he visited her house to tell her he was going into politics. But when she threatened to throw things off course again he used his spite at what she had done to him to devastate her right on back.

He would never had thought there could be a way back from that point for them but it had happened and he cherished her all the more for it.

In the weeks that followed the confrontation at the cabin his resolve hardened. He focused on his mission like never before, feeling ever more wronged by the world, ever more detached from other people and ever more indifferent when contemplating his own demise in the interests of a higher purpose. He was a soldier after all, he had prepared himself to lay down his life for the greater good a long time ago. It was just that Nazir had opened his eyes and his allegiances had changed. When he hated her, he thought of Carrie as an enemy target successfully dispatched and when, despite himself, he still felt love, he convinced himself that she had been collateral damage, a necessary casualty.

Yeah, he was a monster. Brody shook his head and leant back against the cabin wall.


	12. Chapter 12

The night the news broke, Dana had sprawled on her bed, put her earphones in and turned the music up so loud that her tonsils itched. Jess had told her a hundred times that she would go deaf. She didn't care. She glared at the wall to see how long she could avoid blinking and put off the contact of her boiling tears and her skin.

Finn. Her dad. This is what you get for knocking down single mothers in the street, she thought. You can drive right by, you can cover it up with a stack of money, but the stain something like that leaves you with will always surface in the end.

She had fired up her laptop. She knew it was a bad idea. She had wanted to see what the motherfuckers were saying about her dad and by extension, about her. She noted that some kids she hardly knew at her new school, and probably despised anyway, had defriended her on Facebook. Probably at the behest of their stuck-up parents. "Is that the worst you got?", she had scoffed quietly to herself. There were multiple posts on there and on Twitter referring to Langley both directly and indirectly. She'd had plenty of private messages, ranging from "I'm so sorry", to "What the fuck?! Dana?!", "Don't fuck with Osama bin Brody!" and "Call me!". She read none of them. Dana rolled her eyes. _So_, _what_ _happened_ _to_ _innocent_ _until_ _proven_ _guilty_?, she had asked herself.

Her dad's face in that fucked up video had popped into her head again. Her own face crumpled. She was just about to slam the cover of her laptop down against the keys when an instant chat box opened on her screen.

Xander.

Dana hadn't spoken to Xander, or, more accurately, Xander hadn't spoken to _her_ since she had broken up with him. He had taken it badly and then Dana heard from a mutual friend that he had taken the news that Dana had started dating Finn even worse. The fact that they now attended different schools made it easy not to have to deal with it but when the hit and run happened she realized how much she missed him. Xander had been great when Dana was dealing with the whole 'Uncle Mike' thing and then the turmoil of her dad's reappearance. Xander was wise, but he also knew when to just take her the hell out of here and get her stoned.

"Hey". The cursor flashed expectantly after the word. Dana wondered whether to answer him, for lots of reasons. She knew that the secret goddamn police from the visit tonight would probably be watching. They could do that kind of thing, right? Even though it was totally wrong.

"Hey". She typed, hovering over the send button, but eventually hitting it hard.

"Tough day?", responded Xander, immediately.

"The worst, actually. I think I'm gonna have to use a sad face (sad face) because there doesn't seem to be an emoticon yet for 'my-dad-is-the-fucking-bogeyman'".

"They might develop one, just for you?". Xander said.

"That would be a great help", she sent.

"Can I see you soon?", he asked.

"I think I might be grounded. But not by my mom this time, I think the CIA might also be involved. But yes, I'd like that". She replied.

She had stared at the drawer of her nightstand for what seemed like hours. She imagined her photo of Brody laying inside it, in the dark, on top of a notebook and various bottles of nail color. She had badly wanted to touch it but she couldn't bring herself to take it out. It didn't need to be in her hand. She knew every line and shadow in the image, the silhouette of the trees off in the background, the exact angle of his shoulders and the bright but slightly pained smile on his face caused by the fact that he had been looking into the sun when the picture was taken and her mom had dawdled far too long in pressing the button. Dana brought two fingers to her lips, pouted, and then reached out and transmitted her kiss to the front of the nightstand drawer.

Now the day after the night before had dawned, Dana lay motionless in bed. No one was ever awake in the Brody household at this time of day, apart from her dad when he had been here. All was silent but somehow Dana could feel that her brother, her mom and Mike were all awake too, laying there stunned, each not wanting to speak to the other and start the day.


	13. Chapter 13

Quinn had taken a couple of days leave. He figured he deserved it. This last one had seemed like it had been a long assignment, though he guessed it hadn't been really. He had done right by Carrie and Brody and he actually felt kind of good about himself. He had declined the open invitation to all CIA officers at Langley to attend Walden's memorial service. He didn't consider himself CIA and he didn't care much for politicians, anyway. He had headed back to Philly to see his mother. She wasn't doing so good. Emphysema.

His job meant that he kept strange hours, moved around from place to place at short notice, was stationed abroad a lot and couldn't always check in as much as he should. It was right that he went to see her when he got a rare opportunity. His mother thought he was a 'Security consultant'. She didn't quite know what that was, but she felt sure that it was a waste of a Harvard education. Physician, lawyer, architect - wasn't he supposed to have become something like that? Still, he had money and he said that he liked his work, so she let it go. He was a sweet boy, he just needed to find a good woman and settle down, she sighed, the exhalation catching in her chest.

"Ma, would you just _sit_?!", Quinn snapped, eyeing the array of pill bottles and inhalers on the small side table next to her armchair. She fussed him into the room. Quinn noted that she wasn't hooked up to an oxygen mask just yet but every time he came home he dreaded that he might find a gas canister next to her chair, anchoring her to her apartment. Not that it wasn't a nice place. He had set her up there, opposite the park, plenty of trees cleansing the air in the hope that it would give her failing lungs a break.

"Let me see you, John", she said. "You look tired. Do you have woman trouble?", she asked eagerly. Quinn groaned, he was hardly through the door and she had started up on his love life already. This was record time, even for her.

"No, mom, thanks for asking. I've just been working hard is all. That's how come I'm home, I'm taking a few days.".

"You have time off work and you've come to see your mother. There definitely can't be any women on the scene.", she persisted. Quinn rolled his eyes and wondered at the way her company always spun him back to adolescence within mere minutes. "And I suppose it's too much to ask that you might have brought my grandson to see me...".

She was really on a roll now. "Ma! _Stop_, would you please? You know I hardly get to see him myself.". He shook his head at the shit he was getting. "Anyway, I knew I wouldn't get a look in with him in the room. Maybe I want you all to myself?". He put his hand over hers and grinned, he knew just how to charm her.

"_Just like his father._", thought Catherine, to herself.

He cooked for his mother. Quinn had no great skill but his company and the novelty meant that Catherine ate more than she normally would and he was encouraged by this. It was only pasta but he liked taking care of her, it soothed his guilty conscience at not being there for her much. He never troubled her with aspects of his lifestyle that would worry her, which had ruled out his calling her when he had been shot at Gettysburg, or 95% of everything else he got up to, for that matter. She chatted excitedly, gave him family news, told him something or other about the neighbor's daughter's kid and he just let her continue. Although she was sick, and her illness was debilitating and would only get worse, he noted that she still had plenty of light in her eyes and seemed happy enough. He thought back to his childhood. Catherine was always the most glamorous mom he knew of. His dad had been a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and was a pretty smart guy. Catherine was always meticulously dressed and made up, always with a cigarette in her hand. They had both been proud when their son had shown early promise at school, his dad pushing him harder to achieve, while he was always just his mother's blue-eyed boy and she would defend him to the last, even if he had been out of line. Quinn's father covered politics at the paper, mostly humdrum stuff, though scandal, vice and corruption and the thought that good journalism could help bring the bad guys to account really fired him up. Quinn shared his father's quest for justice, he mused, thinking back to his recent encounter with Estes. Sadly his dad was long gone and Quinn dearly wished he was still around so they could take care of each other since he was such an absent son.

She still hadn't let up talking and she was getting breathless. "Mom, do you need to take a pill or something now you've eaten, use one of those inhalers or something?", he asked, worried. She waved off his question.

They watched some old movie together. Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Catherine was clearly enjoying it but between looking at his mother and pondering her condition and his mind flitting back to Langley, he quickly lost interest. When it was over and it had grown dark outside, he asked his mother if she wanted to turn in for the night. Catherine explained that she rarely slept in her bed anymore, that she preferred to sit up in her chair dozing, where her position made it easier to breathe. _This_ _is new. She really is getting worse, _thought Quinn._  
_

In order to let her get some rest, and because he was on holiday after all, he headed to a bar he knew a couple of blocks away. He sat at the bar with a beer, absent-mindedly watching footage from a baseball game on the tv. Quinn wasn't very good at 'down time'. He preferred to keep moving to stave off boredom.

The bar wasn't as busy as he had seen it before but he spied two women across the room, one of whom was very attractive, being hassled by a burly guy in a baseball cap. He watched the scene, amused, thinking '_Dream on, buddy'._ Rebuffed, the thick set man wandered over to the bar, a few stools away from Quinn.

"I dunno, fella. I just don't know what the hell is going on with this world no more, I honestly don't.". Quinn wasn't sure who he was addressing, it could have been himself, or the bartender, or both. "I mean, what a day, huh?". This time he turned to Quinn, who nodded politely, not really wanting to encourage a whole conversation. "Nothing's what it's meant to be no more. Women ain't women, they're lesbians...and not the fun kind, either." he said, gesturing in the direction of the two girls. Quinn swivelled round to see them giggling back, knowing what his tipsy new friend had just disclosed. Quinn grinned back, waving, doubting that their story had been anything more than a ruse to get rid of the cap guy's unwanted advances, but pausing to entertain certain thoughts nonetheless. The guy went on, "And now this. Terrorists dressed as soldiers turning on our guys in Afghanistan and fucking U.S. marines blowing the place sky high at home! Apple-pie lookin' mother fucker too! I'm tellin' youse, the world flipped upside down today!".

Quinn took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?". He looked at the guy in the baseball cap, trying not to seem too intense when he realised his fists were clenched on the bar.

"Lesbians." he replied, "Nothin' doing. Don't waste your time.".

"No. I meant the other part...a U.S. marine did what?", Quinn clarified, trying to stay patient.

The guy, and the bartender for that matter, looked at Quinn incredulously. "The Washington bomb? Blew the CIA sky high? It's all over the news today. How have you _not_ heard?" said the young bartender, grabbing the remote and switching to CNN, "I only put the ball game on because everyone was depressed enough with it already".

The cap guy started up again, "Yeah, that PoW guy they rescued from Iraq? They say he went crazy, on account of them kicking the shit out of him every day for years...and he finally snapped. Kaboom! This world has gone _crazy_!".

Quinn watched approximately thirty seconds of the rolling news broadcast from Langley. He reached into his pocket for his cell and remembered that he had turned it off when he got to his mother's place, just in order to give her his full attention for once. He had left it switched off all the while they were watching Clark Gable to humor her.

"Oh, holy shit", muttered Quinn, throwing some bills down on the bar, grabbing his jacket and bolting for the door.


	14. Chapter 14

Quinn raced back to DC with his car radio on, catching up with the news.

His mother had still been awake in her armchair when Quinn had returned from the bar, sweating profusely. "Ma, you're still up?" He said.

"I don't sleep too much any more", she had replied. Quinn felt the nagging guilt.

"Listen, I just got a call, an emergency at work, some security system failed and they need me to go in. Like straight away. I'm sorry, mom, but I need to leave.".

"That's okay John, it was nice just to see you at all." Catherine smiled beatifically. Another flare of guilt, like heartburn.

"I promise I won't leave it so long next time. Don't get up." Quinn said quietly, leaning forward and kissing her forehead.

The radio stations seemed to be theorizing that Brody had done this, as a lone wolf, because he had been driven insane by his ordeal in Iraq. This echoed with what the drunk guy in the bar had obviously taken on board. Quinn wondered who had been responsible for putting this little spin on things? The theory didn't explain the fact that there was already some Al-Qaeda offshoot claiming responsibility and that Brody was one of theirs. That had been discredited by 'authorities' and 'official commentators' as opportunism, an Al-Qaeda group trying to make a name for itself in the power vacuum created by Abu Nazir's recent demise. But it didn't hold much water with Quinn. He suspected that the powers that be had decided that America, and the West, just wasn't ready to contemplate that Sergeant Brody could have been turned, that _Congressman_ Brody could have been a wolf in sheep's clothes. How could the American electorate place trust in their politicians if they couldn't be sure that they weren't all wearing suicide vests about to detonate at any second? No. Much better to claim that this was a tragic, isolated incident caused by the horrors of war and the brutality meted out to Brody at the hands of the enemy. Just another veteran gone crazy. Not to mention how embarrassing this all was for the establishment. An attack on home soil, at the heart of the CIA, by one of our own, a guy encouraged to run for office? How incompetent did this make them look? They were hardly done crowing about having caught Abu Nazir, still holding up Vice President Walden as the saint who made his capture possible but tragically gave his life in his pursuit when Langley was hit. Walden was no saint, Quinn knew that, they were all dirty to some degree. He also knew that the truth that Brody had links with Nazir and Al Qaeda was being buried and although there would always be conspiracy theorists out there who were closer to the truth than even they realised, the majority of the American populace would be all to happy to swallow that Brody had just, both tragically and lethally, gone nuts.

"Son of a bitch!", yelled Quinn as he hit traffic, smacking his steering wheel.

Quinn knew that he had some explaining to do. Once he had finally turned his phone back on, he discovered that Dar Adal had already sent word that he wanted to see him. Tomorrow. Usual place. Presumably to account for his failure to complete his mission and take Brody out as soon as Abu Nazir had been eliminated, as planned. Quinn gulped. He had let his fool of a heart, his regard for Carrie, get in the way and cloud his judgement. He should have wiped out that motherfucker Brody while he was praying by the lake. Like he was told to. He could have prevented Langley. Arrogance was something that Quinn had been accused of frequently and he was pretty sure the word would be thrown around some more now that his intervention here, or lack of it, became common knowledge.

He guessed he was in serious trouble. The best he could hope for personally out of this was being deployed somewhere shitty, dusty and dangerous for a long, long time to pay penance. He knew he couldn't really be fired since he wasn't officially on the books anyway. Well, he hoped not anyhow because he had child support to pay. There was no concept of serious misconduct, or a disciplinary court marshal in this job. Everything he was asked to do was fucking serious misconduct, more or less. The second he had tried to do the right thing for once, it had massively backfired. Lesson learned. Quinn didn't technically exist. And he knew that his skillset, the things he was prepared to do, was hard to come by. There weren't too many Quinns in the world, but still more than anyone thought. He would need to watch his back, in any case.

There he was thinking about himself. He needed to find out who had been caught up in this. He knew that Saul had been occupied with _other duties_ yesterday, so hopefully he was safe. Carrie? Quinn's jaw flexed. Despite himself, his normal policy of cool detachment had been eroded on this last assignment. The kooks and weirdos at Langley had gotten to him a little, endeared themselves. Carrie included. They had not got along when they first met and he didn't much care. He had been briefed about her, told that she was as brilliant as she was erratic but he had to admit that at one stage he had dismissed her as a fruit loop, a pain in the ass. But she wasn't, not completely. She gave more of herself to that job than anyone else he knew. Saul was up there too in the dedication stakes, but Carrie won hands down. She had given parts of her brain, sacrificed _synapses,_ for god's sake, to punish herself for having been wrong in the past. When she wasn't even wrong, just lightyears ahead of anyone else. With her, a grudging respect had grown into plain old admiration. Quinn knew that if half the people at the Agency were as hardcore and intuitive as Carrie and Saul then things like Langley would not happen. He hadn't expressed this esteem to her. That would have been weird. He hoped to god that Carrie was okay. He was hit by the irony that Carrie could have been killed by the man she loved, the very man Quinn had spared just _because_ she loved him.

Quinn was flagging slightly, so he stopped at a diner. He asked for coffee and perused the menu. He had a hankering for waffles but they now reminded him of Dar Adal, and he was putting the prospect of seeing him to the back of his mind for now. So he asked the waitress if they had any pie left, since it was the middle of the night, thinking he'd check before he got his hopes up. "You're in luck" said Renee, his waitress, with a smile. "Well about time too, I've been waiting for a break.", he flirted. An hour later, full of pie (since Renee had taken a shine to him and given him another helping as she was only going to throw it out before morning) Quinn resolved to take a couple of hours' nap in his car before continuing his journey. He sat there in the dark watching the tail lights of other cars zoom down the freeway. He called Carrie's phone. No answer. Saul. An engaged tone. The bear was probably busy yelling at somebody. That was something, at least, he thought.

Quinn had watched Carrie and Brody by the lake that time, thought long and hard about it. They looked happy. Now this. What the hell was Brody doing? Making hay while the sun shone? One last fling before he went off to paradise to meet all those virgins? Quinn smirked, Carrie was certainly no virgin. Brody's actions just before Langley didn't strike Quinn as those of a man preparing to commit something like this. Not even Brody could have been that convincing, he genuinely loved her too. She was his weak spot, surely he wouldn't hurt her? Maybe he had just resolved to take her with him, crazy bastard. He was quite the badass in the interrogation room, he remembered, until Quinn had sent Carrie in, that was. The big gun. She took him to pieces after Quinn had just picked at his seams. Even Saul had to admit that there was obviously something between that pair, no matter how much he hated the idea. Quinn shook his head, this didn't add up.

He wondered about Estes. If he was still on this earth, he would be enlisting his very own black ops man right now to exterminate Quinn for defying his orders and letting this happen, at Langley, on Estes' watch. Galvez? That son of a bitch was like a cockroach. He had defied the odds to survive the attack on the tailor shop only to limp back to work and have Carrie throw him around at gun point when his stitches had busted, yelling at him that he was Nazir's accomplice. Poor bastard. Virgil and his freaky brother Max? Quinn wouldn't have thought they'd have been invited to Langley that day, they were more like contractors than staff, kind of like himself. Quinn certainly wouldn't have invited Max, that guy had an atrocity or two in him for sure, he chuckled. If he had been present yesterday, Max's photo would go straight to the top of Quinn's pinboard.

Quinn called Saul. "Saul. Thank god. It's Peter. How...um..are you?". Saul sounded hoarse, beat up, much older than his years, on the other end of the line. "Look, I'm near Langley, are you there?". Hearing that he was, but that his voice was shaking, Quinn reassured "OK, just hang on, I'm coming in right now.".


	15. Chapter 15

Carrie opened her eyes and everything fell back into place, like gravity had just been switched back on and had snapped some order back into the weightless, chaotic jumble of people and events that floated through her dreams. She felt groggy from the sedative and her body ached from the impact of the blast. She could do with some more sleep but there was no time.

She felt physical pain at the fact he wasn't with her. The same pain she had felt when Roya had bundled him into that helicopter and he had been missing so long that Carrie was forced to refer to Brody as '_operationally, if not physically, dead'_. She had hidden behind that clinical, analytical term to mask her horror at the acknowledgement that he might be gone. Saul and Quinn had been surprised she had dared to say it. They had been skirting around the issue, not wanting to utter it in front of the woman they had listened to going at it with their asset the night before. Carrie hated that the whole unit had been tuned into events at the motel. She had contrived to seduce Brody, if he let her, for operational reasons, in order to prevent him from going out of his mind and to allow him to feel less abandoned in all this, to give him something and someone to hang on to. It wasn't always the plan, she had just wanted to take him some place safe out of pity and in a bid to calm him down. But seeing how bereft he felt sitting in that motel armchair, she thought it might put him back on track. Back at Langley, she felt that if she used an operational term to describe his disappearance, it would lend credibility to the pretence that she had been in complete control the night before, that she had orchestrated the whole thing to save the mission and prevent an attack. This might keep her from having to cringe quite so much when Saul looked her in the eye.

Carrie wasn't fooling anyone though, and certainly not herself.

She was using CIA jargon in an attempt to maintain a semblance of professionalism. Even though Carrie was able to force the tremor of sheer panic out of her hands, she could still feel it inside shaking her liver, her spleen. She wanted to climb under her desk and howl.

Although she had kissed Brody to comfort him and convince him that _her_ way was _the_ way out of this, Carrie recognized that she had also done it because she so desperately wanted to. As was so often the case with them, things quickly got out of control and she couldn't, didn't want to, stop it. Ever since his interrogation she had barely fought off the urge to touch him whenever she saw him, yearning to show him, to make him believe, that she loved him just as she had claimed. He had pushed her away every time before succumbing momentarily in the woods at the horse farm. There they had started to articulate how confusing, how messed up all of this was but finally to recognize that it was there nonetheless. That was until the hurt and mistrust crept back into Brody's eyes and he walked away, leaving Carrie winded.

In the motel room she kissed him to show him she was there for him. The next moment, Brody had torn off his shirt, tossed it to the floor and advanced at Carrie, pushing her up against the dressing table in one fluid movement. She scrambled at the buckle of his belt. The confusion over how the other was really feeling, the ambiguity over why they were even doing this, Brody's nervous energy and the fact that they both fully expected a SWAT team to blast through the door any second had meant there was no time for niceties. There was no room for anything but the act itself. Carrie had never thought they'd be together like this again. Which isn't to say that she hadn't dared to hope. This was sheer relief, a sudden release of tension. It was serious wish fulfilment and the knowledge that this time could very well be the last time. He made her teeth rattle. She soon forgot any hint of the operation or her strategy to keep it alive.

After, they had collapsed on the bed in awed silence, chests heaving. Within minutes, Carrie felt his exhausted forehead pressing on the back on her own head, his arms still draped loosely around her waist, one of his legs entwined in hers, the peaceful breeze of his breath making her hair tickle her neck. In the dead of night, she felt his fingers trail across her stomach again, him kissing her back between her shoulder blades. In silence she had turned around, pushed him down flat on the bed and slowly climbed on top. She moved against him gently, sleepily, barely at all at some points. It could have been a dream. But she knew they were definitely both awake because they had kissed breathlessly all the while in the darkness. He held her hair out of their faces with his bandaged hand.

"This _is_ for real.", she had whispered into his ear.

When Carrie had come to the next morning, she felt that Brody was already awake. She could hear his mind whirring. She kept her eyes tight shut and sensed him looking at her before he got up, got dressed, took his cell phone off the nightstand and went outside with it. She wondered if he had gone out to call Jess and her heart sank. _Maybe things are going back to 'asset_ _and handler' this morning_, she had thought to herself anxiously.

Carrie had thrown on her own clothes and tiptoed out behind him. He noticed her coming but didn't make to move off or express annoyance at her listening in, as if it had been a private call to his wife. Carrie sighed relief when she got close enough to hear he was speaking to Roya. Things were back on, she hoped, in more ways than one. She was so badly, so hopelessly lost in this that when they sat together on the bench outside their motel room she had wanted time to stop and the world to melt away entirely. Brody had bent his head and planted a kiss on her shoulder, his eyelashes flickering against her skin. Carrie had a sudden vision of a Disney butterfly landing on Bambi's nose. Her heart performed three perfect revolutions in her chest. Jesus. She was seriously concerned for herself, feeling more helpless in the face of this than any of her manic or depressive episodes.

Carrie rolled onto her side, spilling tears down her right cheek. She was afraid that she would never see him again. It was a very real possibility. She was afraid that they would find him and kill him. The sound of the SWAT team dispatching Abu Nazir in the mill rang in her ears. She was afraid that she would be unable to keep them off him. She was afraid he might give up and turn himself in now that she wasn't by his side. She knew how tired he was.

She stared at the pills in her hand, the silver bullets that kept her stable. But maybe 'stable' wasn't what she needed at the moment? Would Carrie have been stable if Brody had died at Langley? That was what she was going to have to pretend, or pretend to believe, even if they only swallowed it for a short while, long enough for Brody to get a head start and have half a chance of getting away. Carrie knew that she could lie effectively if she had to, she could deceive and dissimulate until black had actually become white. But she couldn't act. She couldn't maintain a story 24/7 in the face of friends and loved ones, she would eventually slip up..._look at what happened_ _at the_ _cabin with the Yorkshire Gold_, she thought. She was distraught enough anyway, without having to lay it on thick to play the weeping widow. Carrie recognized that her condition had saved her as many times as it had thwarted her. If she let it take over, she figured, just a little, enough for people to worry for her and to elicit the pity that she normally kicked against so fiercely, not only would her story appear more credible, she would also seem less culpable when they realized Brody had got away. She needed to stay in the game, she couldn't afford to be sidelined or discredited, and her illness could provide an useful excuse if anyone tried it. It was a fine balance she needed to strike. Carrie knew it was distasteful to use her condition so cynically, but she wasn't the goddamn poster girl for bipolar disorder and she was prepared to do whatever it took. She wouldn't go poking at snakes, she was confident she could manage the risk.

She put the pills back in the bottle.


	16. Chapter 16

Dana stalked through the living room on the way to the kitchen to find Mike in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, folding up the blankets and pillows that had converted the Brodys' sofa into his bed for the night. It was just Mike's bad luck that he was the first person Dana had come across that morning and the one to bear her wrath.

"Oh _please_ Mike, you slept on the sofa?", she whined.

"Good morning, Dana.", said Mike, ignoring her tone, not rising to the bait.

"I mean, why are you even fucking _pretending_? Everyone knows you've been screwing my mom for years.", she continued, getting more exercised.

"Dana.", sighed Mike.

_"Dana!_", echoed Jess only louder and angrier, racing into the center of the room and coming to an abrupt halt with one hand on her hip.

But Dana was in no mood to back down. "Aren't we a little bit _beyond_ this? I mean, there really is no reason to hide it any more. There is something a little more important going on right now after all, in case you hadn't noticed. I _know_. Chris _knows_. Even _Dad_ knew. Exactly whose feelings are you trying to spare? The only person who cared is gone. He's gone. Properly, this time. So, just give it the fuck up!".

Jess bit her lip and glared at her daughter. Dana, realizing how incoherent and ridiculous her outburst had been but still feeling better for having lashed out, stormed back to her room. Mike and Jess raised their eyebrows at each other, while Chris, who had ventured out of his bedroom in the middle of the yelling, ducked back inside quickly and pushed the door closed behind him.

"What the hell did you say to her?", Jess asked Mike.

"I said '_good mornin_g'", he shrugged. Jess laughed plaintively, drawing him into a hug. Mike kissed her cheek.

"Did you sleep okay on there?", she gestured to the sofa.

"_Sleeping _probably isn't the best way to describe it. But I was fine. You look beat too. How are you doing?" Mike said, rubbing her arm.

"I honestly don't know how I am." said Jess, looking up at him, still feeling bewildered.

"Maybe you should go talk to Dana?", he suggested, "I'll see to Chris, get him to help me make breakfast.".

Dana sat on her bed texting Xander to come by and get her 'the fuck out of there', scraping her top lip with her bottom teeth to keep from crying again. Jess knocked, didn't wait for an answer, entered and sat on her bed.

"You can't just attack Mike like that.", stated Jess. "Mike has only ever done right by you and you know it.".

"Oh really?!, like the time he broke up my parents' marriage? Mike's been a great help, for sure!", Dana snapped sarcastically.

"Mike is not why we separated. That had more to do with the way your Dad has been since he came home. You will apologize to Mike.". Jess was calm and stern. She checked herself for not having spoken about Brody in the past tense.

"Mom. I am an _adult_. You don't get to tell me how to feel, what to say and who I should apologize to anymore. That's not how it works." Dana replied, aggressively.

"If you were an _adult_, you wouldn't feel the need to abuse Mike because you can't deal with everything that's happening right now. I'd expect it from Chris, because he is a _child_, but not from you. If you are angry with your father, go ahead and be angry with him. _That's_ how it works. Don't confuse the issue here.". Jess was proud of herself, she wasn't getting emotional, she was in control.

"Maybe I'm not angry with him.", Dana growled. "Maybe I'm mad at you?" She tossed her phone down on the bed bedside her, building up steam. "Do you believe he has done what they say he's done? I haven't heard you question it once. Are you just going to take it? He is still your husband, even if you have clearly moved on. Mine and Chris' dad. You just sat there last night and let fucking Mulder and Scully tell me, _tell Chris_, that our father is a mass murdering terrorist. Why won't you fucking fight for him?!" Her voice cracked at the last and she broke down. Her tears fell once more but not like the previous night, this time they seemed to come out in chunks, like they were almost too big to express from her tear ducts, each wave accompanied by a huge sob that rocked her body.

Jess took hold of her daughter and rubbed her head while she cried. She couldn't remember the last time Dana had let her hold her like this. She was suddenly just the soft, limp, trembling girl in her arms, not a sharp, angular firework that fizzed every time Jess looked at her. "The video, Dana. He confessed. What defense is there? I know this hurts more than anything has ever hurt before. It's probably the worst thing you'll ever have to go through. I can't see how there could be much worse than this. I don't want to believe he did it...but he confessed...it just explains so much. Dana, I'm so sorry. That's why I didn't fight for him.". Jess blinked back her own tears. She added, quietly, "And if you're really asking me why I didn't fight for him when he said he wanted to leave home, it was because he didn't want me to.".

Dana looked up at her mother and wondered if, deep down, that had been what she really meant.

"But he was getting better, for Christ's sake. He was doing so much better!", Dana said angrily. Her words tumbled out, choking her as she gasped in air and spat out strands of her hair from her mouth. "He wasn't like before, the time when he just seemed..._wrong_. That time, I would have believed it. Like that CIA woman believed it. _He told me we were right_. That time he listened to me. I told him I needed him to come home and he did. This time he...he was different than before, he told me he knew he'd been screwed up before. Like he'd changed. This was right before Finn's dad's service. _Right before_. He couldn't have done it. He wouldn't just leave me like this.". She cried hard enough now that no sound came out, hiding her silent rictus howling against her mother's shoulder, covering her with tears that seemed thicker, stickier than normal. She wasn't sure if it was out of grief, or the sense of rejection by her father that Brody really having done this implied, or the indignation and sense of injustice caused by her conviction that he definitely had not. Either way, it fucking hurt and adult or not, it was far too much for her to bear.

Jess stayed with her, smoothing her hair and stroking her back long after Dana had stopped crying, almost grateful that she had fallen to pieces and hostilities had ceased long enough to allow Jess this direct contact with her baby. God knew, she needed it. Jess felt sure that Dana was just in denial. She would suggest that she told everything to the agents who were coming to pick them up later that day and hope that they would help her make sense of it. Jess just didn't have the answers. She had always handled the calls of "_Where's my daddy?_", and "_Is he ever coming_ _home_?" that the kids launched at her on an almost daily basis while they were growing up by being positive and giving them hope. She would rather have been seen to have lied to Dana and Chris all that time now, she wished he had never come back. What had their prayers been worth? What assurances could she ever give them again, when nothing was certain even if they came true?


	17. Chapter 17

There it was again. Guilt. Rising like heartburn in Quinn's chest, in the back of his throat. Catholics were conditioned to feel it in most situations, he thought, but then he also thought that he had shrugged all that off years ago. This was nothing to do with latent Catholicism. He stood in the parking lot at Langley, as close as he could get to the scene of the blast without actually going in past the various vehicles and cordons and the hive of activity that went with them. He hadn't been prepared for it, seeing somewhere he knew so well razed to the ground. The feeling that he was responsible, or, more accurately, that he was responsible for not stopping the person who had done this, weighed heavy on him.

Saul had relocated to a building on another part of the campus, a fair distance from what was left of the auditorium and the adjoining building where his own office was. Quinn had swung by a bakery on the way there to get bagels and coffee, it was early morning and he doubted that Saul had slept, let alone eaten anything. He found Saul sitting at a desk in a bare office in front of a laptop playing its screensaver with his head in his hands. When Saul looked up, Quinn saw that his eyes were red raw from a mixture of smoke, exhaustion and tears.

Quinn tossed the package of bagels on the desk in a casual, manly way, suddenly self conscious about showing Saul a kindness. Then he felt stupid for being macho at a time like this. He wished Carrie was there, she softened their edges despite being harder than them all put together.

"Good to see you, Saul." said Quinn. Saul had forced a smile. Quinn set down a coffee in front of Saul and sat down opposite him. "You been up all night?", Quinn asked.

Saul nodded, pushing up his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose, then remembering that it was polite to answer when someone spoke to him he added, too late, "Yeah, just taking calls and...you know..", trailing off. His voice was hoarse, like he had been yelling for hours.

"So, I just came by the uh, site. There aren't words...I can't...", now Quinn trailed off.

"I know, I know. I had to leave, I was just getting in the way. They'll be there days, weeks even." Saul replied, taking the lid off his coffee, sighing. "Thank you, for this, by the way.".

Quinn shook his head, no thanks needed. He watched Saul drinking, concerned that he seemed a ghost of his normal self, like a senile old man found wandering the street in his pyjamas. Seeing how upset he was, Quinn didn't feel able to rush him, to ask for Carrie and Danny and the others. He didn't want to upset him further. The longer it went on, the less able Quinn felt to ask and the more certain he became that they must have all perished.

Heartburn.. Quinn hoped it was the bagel.

The pair of them sat there in silence for a while, eating. Quinn waited patiently for news. "So, I didn't hear about any of this until late last night. I was in Philadelphia. I came back as soon as I found out. What can I do? Just name it. Are you heading up the investigation? Who, um, _else_ is here?". Quinn couldn't quite hide the note of desperation in his voice on that last question and he imagined that it had registered all over his face too, because Saul suddenly tore off his glasses with one hand and smacked the other onto his forehead, dragging splayed fingers over his eyes, past his nose and down across his mouth.

"Christ, Peter, I'm so sorry! You're asking me...Sorry. I'm a little, uh,_ tired_." Saul looked mortified. He had sat there alone with the bare facts of the matter for hours until they seemed to have become part of the air in the room. It hadn't occurred to Saul that Quinn, who was now breathing that same air, wasn't also party to the horrors that he was already processing.

Quinn bit the inside of his mouth, wishing that Saul's faculties would fire the hell up and he would give him the news already. He dug his thumbnail into the arm of his chair and braced himself.

"Carrie is alive". Saul announced finally, warmly, still surprised at the fact himself.

Quinn tipped his head backwards and looked to the ceiling, letting out a huge sigh that seemed to go on for minutes. "Thank god.", he said. Relief like he had never felt bloomed inside his chest and killed just as little of that acid reflux. "Is she in the hospital? What's her condition?".

"Actually she's at her sister's resting. She barely has a scratch on her. She was shaken and concussed, confused. But she's fine. She missed the blast by minutes. Sheer luck.". Saul smiled fondly.

Quinn watched Saul's smile fade slowly, sadly. "Who else?", he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Saul nodded his head, confirming the unthinkable. "Pretty much all gone. 206 people so far. Estes, Knight, Galvez, Feehan, Walden's wife and kid, Farooq, Mendes, Cooper, Obafemi, Taylor...", he trailed off again, misting over. "I spoke to most of their families myself. Didn't want them to hear it from some human resources person, a cop who never even knew them. There's a list around here..." Saul rustled through the papers on his desk but suddenly sank a few inches, bowed his head and took hold of the bridge of his nose again. He wept silently. Quinn saw his shoulders jerking up and down and thought to himself that he could have mistaken it for laughter if he hadn't seen the completely haunted expression on his face in the second before he had broken down. Quinn went over to Saul's side of the desk and crouched down, extending an unsure arm around his shoulders and patting him gingerly, before giving up and gripping him tighter. Quinn gulped. He wasn't sure if he was helping but he stayed put nonetheless until Saul had recovered enough to whisper '_thank you, Peter_'.


	18. Chapter 18

Quinn looked at the list in silence while Saul cleared his throat, each of them adhering to the code of behaviour for sober males that dictated they should immediately pretend that the incident with the tears and the sort-of hug hadn't happened. The CIA had been decimated. Many rising stars had been killed. He looked at Saul and wondered where the next generation would come from, because Saul for one didn't look like her had anything much left in him to give. Quinn ran his eye over the names of those who had been hospitalized. "I tell you whose name I don't see.", said Quinn.

"Yes. It is easier to work by exception, I got to admit." Saul replied. "Brody. As yet unaccounted for. The device, however, was located in his car.".

"You think he was sitting on top of it when it detonated?" asked Quinn.

"He better hope he was.", said Saul, grimly. "Forensics are working on it, it could be a while.".

"What CCTV evidence do we have?", Quinn thought aloud.

Saul sighed. "Very little so far. The cameras and the entire system in the immediate area were knocked out, they're trying to recover what they can but they're not giving me much hope as yet. As for witnesses, we have a handful of people in hospital, some in surgery, some critical, none in any position to talk right now. We have statements from some aides and staffers in the building that were clear of the auditorium . And we have Carrie. She said she saw it go up from the window. She was in no state to discuss it last night, she knows Brody is probably dead..."

"And probably responsible?", added Quinn.

"Most probably. We didn't cover that, it was too soon, even for her." replied Saul. "I'm not sure how she's going to cope. She got too close to him again.".

Quinn nodded solemnly. There was a short silence.

"They're sending me some agents, a couple of analysts, an ops officer who had her leave cancelled. They should be here later today. And so, we start again." He looked exhausted, resigned.

"You should get some rest too, you know. While you can. I, uh, need to go right now, there's a thing I need to do. I'll only be an hour or so I hope, but I can come back later? See where we're up to, what they've turned up by then?". Quinn got to his feet and started towards the door.

Saul pushed back in his chair and fixed a stare on Quinn. "Tell Dar Adal I said _bon appetit_, won't you?" He watched Quinn's face drop. "I know why you were really on the payroll. Estes wanted Brody eliminated because of what he knew. I was next on the list, apparently. He changed his mind though. Or he had his mind changed for him. Did you have anything to do with that?"

Quinn rolled his eyes and took a step forward, not knowing how much he should own up to. "Maybe.", was all he was prepared to venture at this stage.

"Perhaps Estes was right to call you in. If things hadn't changed course, then maybe we wouldn't have wound up here." Saul suggested.

Quinn couldn't work out why Saul was not more furious with him. "But things did change course. And I'll live with it for the rest of my life." He looked to the floor.

"Which might not be so long once Dar Adal catches up with you." Saul paused. "If Brody did this, he didn't act alone. The fact that he did it is almost less valuable than than _who he was_ when he did it, the fact that they can attribute it to him. That fucking video. It was a huge fucking PR exercise. Sure, over 200 U.S. government agents have lost their lives, credible targets as far as Al-Qu'aeda is concerned - chalk them up - but the real gold here is that their new poster boy is a white, American, marine, a pillar of our community. The psychological magnitude of this cannot be underestimated. Nazir may have put Brody up to it, torturing him, indoctrinating him over years, putting a cell in place to act as decoy, then another still to support the attack, but how could he have been so supremely confident that it would all go off exactly as he had planned, even after he had martyred himself so we dropped our guard? Brody didn't go through with it the first time, after all. Nazir had to come up with a new plan. If you had spent so long preparing something as meticulously, something with so many variables, your magnus opus, wouldn't you feel the need to be around to see that the button was actually pressed this time?".

Quinn felt relieved to see that the old Saul had finally come back into the room, suddenly claiming back the shell of the man that had had him so worried this morning.

"But you buried him at sea. So we're looking for another commander. Nazir's number two?" surmised Quinn.

"I don't know. But _we_ are sure as hell going to find out. When he is done with his breakfast and tearing you a new asshole, you tell Dar Adal that you owe me. You _both_ owe me. I'll talk to him myself to square it with him, if I have to. Truth is, I need you Quinn. I'm on my ass here. I don't have too many options right now and I'll take whatever I can get. We need to go hard at Roya Hammad and I also need you to to keep an eye on Carrie. But I require loyalty. Those 206 people _deserve_ loyalty. Agreed?"

Quinn nodded, chastened. "I'll call you.", he said quietly before leaving the office.

Outside the building, the acrid smell of the bomb site on the breeze made its way back into his nostrils, making him shudder. In the parking lot Quinn found Carrie rooted to almost the same spot he had stood in. He called her as her approached but she didn't seem to hear him. He repeated her name over and over as he got closer, eventually reaching out his arm to touch her gently on the back, so as not to make her jump. As Carrie turned to face him, he saw the tears pooling in her eyes breach her lids.

Quinn pulled her to him and she hung on tight. Somehow hugging women didn't feel awkward to Quinn, whether he was trying to get them into bed or not. For a second, Carrie pretended he was Brody but he didn't feel right, didn't smell right.

"I've never been so pleased to see you, Mathison.", Quinn said quietly to her.

Carrie broke loose. "You're never pleased to see me.", she said.

"You'd be surprised.", he replied. "I've just seen Saul. He has a new office around the corner - it's fancy. Here, I'll show you.". He kept his arm wrapped around her shoulders, slightly protectively, making sure that she was really, truly there and not just a hologram generated by his guilty conscience.

They walked slowly. "Why are you being so..._nice_?". she asked, suspiciously.

He stopped in front of her and looked at her pointedly. "Well, I figure that you've been through rather a lot just lately. So I thought I'd give you a break. I guess I'm all heart."

Carrie frowned. He was obviously referring to Brody. She couldn't handle it. "Well cut it out. It's weird and it doesn't become you."

He smiled, all was not lost. "Listen. Saul. He's kind of in a bad way. I'm not at all surprised, given the night he's had. He's pretty much all alone with this. He had to brief the President, for Christ's sake, and you can imagine how _that_ went down. He, uh, just keeps spacing out. The guy just needs some sleep. But he'll listen to you, so make sure he takes care of himself.".

"Sure.", said Carrie. Half her mouth moved upwards. A smile of sorts. "Thanks, Quinn.".

Quinn wished people would stop thanking him, it made him feel worse.


	19. Chapter 19

Brody recognized that he needed to shake off this torpor. He knew that sitting there motionless in the gloom was not going to help. But he also knew that his will was failing. The past few weeks were catching up with him, finally. He had nearly lost his mind but now his body seemed to be shutting down too. He just wanted to rest and he felt that the second he stepped outside the cabin he would be stepping back into the fray. He wasn't ready for more 'fray'. He wondered whether survival instinct was a finite thing and whether his had been all but depleted, finally spent after all these years.

He had tried prayer. He swept the floor of the cabin with the gnarled broom he found in the kitchen. He performed his ablutions as best he could using one of the bottles of water. He flattened out his sleeping bag, folded it in two and and oriented it towards Mecca. His own voice sounded far too loud, it felt like years since he had last spoken. Praying brought him peace for the time he was absorbed by it and for a short while after. He thought about all the locations he had ever prayed in. Nazir's compound. His garage. By the lake at Carrie's cabin.

But the nagging dread in the pit of his stomach soon returned.

Brody tried to distract himself by emptying out the backpack properly, setting out all its contents in a neat grid on the cabin floor, meticulously, the way that the military had drummed it into him. Carrie had been thorough at the things she had thought to include when designing the Mathison standard issue escapology kit. He set the maps to one side. Compass, flashlight, bandages and gauze, codeine, swiss army knife, what looked to Brody like a course of antibiotics, rubbing alcohol, the money, traveller's cheques, a notebook, his new passport, the beretta and its ammo, water purification tabs, a waterproof sharpie, a packet of chalk sticks, a firelighter, matches, a trip wire, a fearsome-looking military-issue dagger, crackers, more glucose sachets and some jelly beans. Along with his sleeping bag-come-prayer mat, that's all he had in the world. Not much to base a new life on, not the clean slate he had wished for.

Brody unfolded the map. His current location was marked with a red dot. He saw other red dots, the closest one about twenty miles away. He assumed that these were other places of shelter. He wondered when she had made the map, whether those places of shelter still existed, whether they were cabins like this, shacks or just ruins to provide partial cover from the elements. Even Carrie couldn't have been so prepared that she had her own chain of private hideyholes with food and water. Should he just trust in Carrie and follow the dots? If she had a copy of this map, or at least knew it well, and he followed it, she would be able to find him. If that map or the knowledge that it existed fell into other hands however, Brody would be a sitting duck.

He knew that she wouldn't give up his location readily but he was painfully well versed in the techniques of interrogation and coercion. Of torture. He was scared for her. He knew she had plenty of mettle but he couldn't stand the thought of her sat on the wrong side of that table, lights shining in her eyes, sleep deprived, medication witheld, with a bastard like Quinn ready to use his knife to weaken her resolve. All in the interests of national security.

When the CIA officers had thrown a hood over his head and brought him in with his feet and hands shackled, he was reeling. Reeling because, through Roya Hammad, Nazir was suddenly back in his life demanding complicity in an attack beyond anything they had ever planned before. Reeling because Carrie had suddenly reappeared, smiling brightly and wearing her CIA lanyard, seeming remarkably together. And reeling because she had said something to him in his hotel room seconds before they bundled him away. Something she had said in anger that sounded true and unrehearsed. He had quickly reminded himself that _everything_ they did and said from this point on was designed to destabilise him. He had figured that Carrie had just been first up in their tag team, delivering a sucker punch before they even had the cuffs on him.

Before Roya had made herself known to him, Brody had been something approaching content. He was playing politics and some days even working quite hard at it. He wasn't a bad Congressman at all, he displayed more of a flair for it than guys who were doing it for real. Jess complained that she and the kids didn't see him as much as she'd like, but she did however like the salary and viewed it as recompense for what they had all been through, the way they had struggled for years without him. Ultimately she was just glad he now had something to stop him climbing the walls.

Things had been improving at home. The kids were in a new school, claiming to hate it but settling down and making friends despite their protestations. Chris seemed to be relaxing a little more in Brody's presence, looking for Mike less and less. Dana had stopped seeing Xander and Brody was secretly glad because the little punk had reminded him of himself at that age and he didn't like him skulking around his daughter. He had given Xander the Brody stare on more than one occasion but it hadn't dissuaded him from turning up at their house at all hours waiting for Dana, just as Brody had chased Jess and disconcerted her father all those years ago.

Brody had despised working with Walden. Seeing his glib arrogance up close made his skin crawl, but he consoled himself all the while that his ultimate aim would be to bring him down when the time was right. Perhaps not in the literal way that the bunker plot had promised to, but he would destroy him nonetheless. Isa and his school friends would be avenged. Walden's hypocrisy would not go unpunished. Brody now recognized how naive he had been to trust that Nazir had also been satisfied with this situation, like he would settle for having Brody on the inside, peacefully influencing American foreign policy in his small capacity as Congressman, and biding his time until Walden could be politically disgraced and personally exposed. It was obvious now that this would never have been sufficiently merciless for Nazir's tastes, not nearly grandiose enough to bear his name.

Things had appeared calmer in the Brody household but it was mostly superficial. He still suffered from vicious nightmares and he still lashed out at Jess in his sleep. He still woke to find her standing panicked in the doorway, having leapt out of bed as soon as he started to thrash, with the memory of the Arabic for '_Just kill me, please_.' on his lips. The unblemished skin around his bigger scars still prickled, as if to remind his nervous system that something very bad had happened in the not too distant past, just in case his mind was in any danger of forgetting. He hallucinated during his waking hours a little less now, although this occasionally returned in times of stress. He managed to hold it together at work, got through functions and the odd public speaking spot without having visions and Jess seemed to recognise when he was struggling now too, so did her best to bring him down again.

Despite initially being opposed to the idea, Jess enjoyed being the wife of a Congressman. On one hand Brody liked pleasing her, she deserved a break after all. She was proud of him. Only he knew how misplaced that pride was. She seemed to enjoy being welcomed into political society, dressing up and going to the parties, the fundraisers, being fawned over by the liars, the warmongers and the Stepford wives. While he knew she didn't buy the bullshit entirely, there was a trace of the social climber about Jess and he found it distasteful. The longer it went on, the more accustomed to this new life she became, the more uncomfortable he felt. His wife was mixing with Walden's wife, Dana was seeing Finn...exactly what _did_ this make the Brodys? Brody was the only one who knew it wasn't for real. He watched as Dana got her fingers burnt over the hit and run, the way they had brought her up clearly at odds with the company she was now keeping. And he could do nothing about it. Carrie had stopped him and he was mad as hell. Dana was the only one to call him on his hypocrisy but even she didn't know the half of it.

Brody had concentrated on trying to give Jess what she wanted. He suspected that on some level she still wanted Mike but was sublimating it in order to honor her commitment to her marriage and kids. But she was trying and he was trying too. Mike was still present but keeping a respectful distance at least. Brody had moved from the floor back into the marital bed and intimacy was creeping back. Brody was slowly reacclimatising to the fact that the sensation of another person's fingers on his skin wasn't always going to result in a beating and that he had, after all, rediscovered his libido through his encounter with Carrie. And therein lay the problem. Carrie popped back into his head at crucial moments and he couldn't help it. Months after he had all but buried her he was still biting his lip to keep from saying her name in bed. Jess was none the wiser and just pleased that things seemed to be getting back on track. Brody was plagued by the thought that even though he was trying to move on by sleeping with Jess, every time he did so he felt like they took a little step backwards. Even though he wanted it, as soon as they had started some memory of Carrie would surface and he wanted it over with as soon as possible. Both because he felt guilty and because he hated that Carrie still had an undeniable effect on him. Jess just put his haste down to intensity, his relief at physical contact again after all those years. She was confident she could coach tenderness back into him, she knew it was there, it wasn't like he didn't already show it in other aspects of their life together. Like most things in his life, Brody's relationship with sex had become complicated, he couldn't just enjoy the moment. Sex was as inevitable as life itself but he now equated pleasure with betrayal; his betrayal of Jess through his wandering mind and Carrie's betrayal of him through her duplicity.

Carrie was just another one of his demons that he had been unable to forget. So when he bumped into her again, it stirred up all kinds of turmoil and immediately made him question everything, just like that last morning at the cabin.


	20. Chapter 20

Saul was absent-mindedly chewing the end of his pen, staring in the direction of the window, yet not out of it. He wasn't focusing, just letting the sunlight sting his weary eyes. She wondered what he was thinking, what he was watching in the middle distance. Carrie coughed again and he span round in his chair, startled. He got up quickly without saying a word and scooped her up, squeezing her tight. _A bear hug_, she thought to herself, smiling softly. She was forced to cough again. "Too hard? I'm sorry, Carrie.", he said, setting her down and looking her over carefully.

"I just saw Quinn." Carrie said, deflecting Saul's serious gaze and preventing him from following it up with any poignant comments that might have made her cry. "He was nice to me for a whole five minutes. Things _must_ be bad.".

"Yeah. They must be. He bought me bagels.", Saul agreed. "How are you feeling?".

"I'm okay I guess.". The furrow in her brow and the twitch in her chin undermined her answer. "And you?". She peered up at him and it struck him that she resembled a tiny bird perching on a bare branch.

Saul issued the longest sigh and shrugged. But then he smiled warmly, "I'm better for seeing you.".

Carrie was taken aback at just how much Saul seemed to have aged overnight. Quinn hadn't been exaggerating when he had warned her. He appeared to be taking comfort from her company though, their fight from the day of the bomb seemed to have been forgotten. They were just grateful to still have one another when everyone else had been ripped away. Because of this amnesty, Saul let Carrie persuade him that he needed a break where normally he would have shrugged her off and continued regardless.

"You have a good couple of hours before you'll be required on site.", Carrie reasoned. "Nobody is going to begrudge you a shower and a cat nap, Saul.".

"You're telling me I look like shit. Do I look like shit?". He asked, nodding before she even opened her mouth in reply.

"Yes. Yes you do.", Carrie confirmed, looking down at his papers. "We can take anything you have so far and make a start on it at your place. We won't waste any time. Come on, let's go Berenson, get your things.". She clapped her hands together.

He gave in and gathered up his files, switched off the laptop. He did feel kind of grimy and he knew her proposal made sense. He had little energy to argue in the face of her vim, anyway. He watched her make a beeline for the large block of different coloured post-its on the desk and stuff them greedily into her satchel. "We'll need supplies.", she explained, while cherry-picking some pens from the desk tidy.

He understood that they were putting a brave face on things, he _got_ that they were trying to keep each others' spirits up. He _hoped_ that was what it was. He prayed he wasn't going to have to call Maggie. Carrie seemed a little nervy, a little too '_up_' considering what she had just been through. He hoped it was just her reaction to things, a way of coping. He would watch her carefully.

Carrie drove them to his place after Saul had passed by the site one more time for an update and to let them know he should be reached on his cell if anything significant came to light. He felt guilty for leaving. Carrie had waited beyond the cordon, shuddering at the sight of the crater located where the auditorium used to be. They didn't speak much on the journey, as if their initial effort to keep things lighthearted had quickly exhausted them and they had inevitably slipped back to a more appropriately subdued state. She had played some jazz in the car and Saul had allowed the music to sweep him away for a minute or two, grateful for the respite from the darkness lodged in his mind's eye. He watched her while they were stopped at the lights and noticed her fingers trembling on the steering wheel. He saw tears form in her eyes. The lights turned to green and she stalled the engine. The cars behind started to sound their horns. "_Fuck_! Fuck it!", she shouted in frustration that quickly became desperation. Carrie's tears began to roll and Saul made her pull into the side of the road until she could compose herself. "It happened again, Saul.", she uttered through her tears. He assumed she was referring to Brody pulling the wool over her eyes. "We got hit. _So_ hard. We missed it again.". Saul unbuckled his seatbelt and hugged her, realising that she was talking about the attack in general and that she still hadn't mentioned Brody's name in all this. She was in denial, he guessed. He would need to tread carefully, be patient. The last thing had wanted was to trigger any kind of episode for her by rushing in and overwhelming her.

Carrie had brightened again by the time they reached Saul's house. He took a shower, tried to wash the charred corpses from his pores and found some fresh clothes that he had last worn before he had seen what he saw last night, wondering if they would fit him differently now. He felt changed, altered by the destruction he had seen up close, so much so that he expected it to register on his body somewhere. He looked himself over in the mirror and finally found it lurking in his eyes, little pin pricks of horror in his irises, tiny licks of vile smoke trapped between his laughter lines. He knew that it would stay with him forever.

He found Carrie busy in the kitchen when he came back downstairs. She was making some kind of salad, arranging it on a large plate, taking care to alternate the main ingredients according to their colour, strips of vegetable radiating out from the centre like the sweeping second hand on a clock face. Saul swiped a green bean as he walked past Carrie on his way to get some juice, exasperating her slightly. "Your fridge is way better stocked than mine.", Carrie observed.

Saul stood back and admired her work. "You've done well. But I should warn you that like me, some of those vegetables could be past their best.".

"Maybe. But it's still a step up from licking peanut butter from your ruler.", she replied with a smirk, "Let's eat.".

After, Saul had fallen asleep on the couch. Carrie covered him with a blanket, drew the curtains and removed his glasses, placing them tenderly on the coffee table. She sank down next to him, resting her head against his arm, keeping guard over him. Saul slept the sleep of the dead, his mind too tired to even dream. When he awoke a couple of hours later, he found that Carrie had dropped off too, her head so heavy on his shoulder that despite not wanting to wake her, he just had to shift position. She stirred and murmured, "_Brody_?", opening one eye.

"No, he's not here, Carrie. It's just you and I.", replied Saul, his voice husky from the fog of sleep.

Carrie looked startled, busted, waking herself up quickly to try to recall what she had just uttered, wondering whether it was anything incriminating or even just personal. She sat up and rubbed her face.

"Did you think I was him?", Saul asked, eager to capitalise now that she had finally said the B-word, even if it was unwittingly.

"Yeah maybe.", she ceded, "for a second I hoped he...". She trailed off and looked Saul in the eye.

"I won't take it personally.", he smiled, rubbing her back. "We do need to talk about what happened though, if you're ready?".

Carrie took a deep breath and looked over at her dearest friend apprehensively. She bit her lip. "I know we do.", she said.

"So.", he said. "How was Brody before the service? Where was he when it all went off?".

"He was fine. Cheerful, even. He just wanted to get the memorial over with, issue his statement about stepping down in the wake of Walden's death and move on. He just wanted to put it all behind him and start a new life, Saul.".

"He said he wanted that with you?", Saul asked. He saw her eyes grow watery and he hated himself but he needed to have this conversation, to make her cry if need be.

"Yes. And I wanted it too, you know that. But I was confused. After you and I had..._words_ that morning...I still needed time to think. It wasn't an easy decision to make. We fought a little - Brody and I. I felt rushed, so we argued. I stormed off. To think. I ended up in your office.".

"And Brody?", Saul prompted.

"I...I don't know. I think he went back to the auditorium." At this, huge tears fell down her cheeks. Saul interpreted this as grief, he couldn't see that the real pain behind her tears was caused by her having to deceive him.

"We haven't found him yet, Carrie.", Saul whispered, as if by speaking quietly his words might hurt her less. "Could he have been in his car?". He winced.

"No. No he couldn't have been, Saul. I was looking out of the window, I saw the bomb go off. He wasn't there. I'd have seen him. He wasn't there, Saul. He didn't do this.". Carrie's eyes widened, imploring Saul to believe her.

"The C4 was in his car, Carrie, even if he wasn't. We'll know for sure soon.", Saul said gently.

"Brody parked out front. I saw him come in. Somebody moved his car, Saul. We need to find out who moved his car! _They_ are trying to frame him.".

"Carrie. I know all this is hard to take in...".

"Why? Because I'm the _smartest and the dumbest fucking person you know_?!" Carrie was losing her temper, annoyed that he wasn't following her logic.

"Carrie.", Saul sighed, not wanting to fight again. "What about the video? Issued to the media within an hour of the attack. Isn't it there in black and white?".

"Yeah? Issued by who?", yelled Carrie.

"It was sent by email, the usual story, it went through multiple servers internationally, hijacked IP addresses. We have a guy on it, tracing the source.".

"We'll _that_ wasn't Brody. He could barely work his fucking phone.", said Carrie. "Saul. I was with Brody all weekend. He didn't have the opportunity to get something like this together. He didn't have the inclination or the conviction either.".

"I'm figuring he had help. Maybe he didn't even know himself until the last minute. That's why I asked you how he was, if he was agitated. You said you fought. Could he have wanted to get you out of there? I'm sorry but it all points to him."

"No.", said Carrie, defiantly.

Saul didn't let up, he needed to try tough love. "He spent the weekend neutralising the biggest threat to the mission - you, he got the C4 onto site and I'm convinced we'll find that he pressed the button this time too.".

"So I was _neutralised_?! Is that what you just said?!.", she spat.

"Carrie, I'm not claiming that you didn't have real feelings for him. Or him for you, after a fashion. But he thought he had a higher calling. He was _still_ that guy in the suicide vest.".

"Then you know absolutely nothing about him!". She glared at him for a number of seconds before shaking her head in fury, getting to her feet and making for the door, slamming it hard behind her like an enraged teenager.

Saul rubbed his beard roughly, aggravated beyond words. He thumped a cushion next to him on the couch. She _was_ the smartest and the dumbest fucking person he knew. The most infuriating. He sighed. The most endearing and precious to him, too. This was going exactly the way he feared it would. He didn't know how he could have Carrie active on the investigation when she was this involved and this volatile but he couldn't see how he could stand her down either without her winding up back in the hospital.

Saul reached for his cell and dialled Maggie.


	21. Chapter 21

Brody crouched down on the cabin floor, carefully returning his new possessions to the backpack, wanting to maximise the space left over so that he could take some cans and some water with him. He cleaned the gun as best he could and loaded it. It was heavy in his hand and he hoped that he wouldn't have to use it. He aimed it at the door of the cabin, lining the sight up with the head of some imaginary foe.

The first time he saw Carrie again it was like an earthquake, imperceptible to all others but strong enough to bring entire buildings down on top of him. She had smiled gloriously, she seemed on top of things, she was back at work. A far cry from the broken, tearful figure it had hurt his insides to say goodbye to in the car park after her arrest. She seemed _fixed_ and she seemed to bare him no rancour for what had happened. How could she have been back at the CIA? Didn't she have some kind of breakdown?

David Estes had invited Brody to his office after the incident with Carrie approaching Dana at his house. He offered him a drink to say sorry for Carrie's behaviour, trying to smooth things over. He said Carrie was crazy, a manic depressive, that the whole business was sad and regrettable but that her career was over and that Brody wouldn't be bothered by her again. Estes explained that Brody was perfectly within his rights to press charges if he wanted to but that of course, for his part, he would rather that he didn't, so as to not bring disrepute on the Agency. Carrie was in a nuthouse, Estes had laughed apologetically, she wouldn't cause him any further trouble. They were going to try ECT on her, in fact she had requested it herself. She wouldn't be out any time soon and she'd probably never be the same again. David had called it a shame, a waste of a fine operations officer. Brody had felt a little nauseous.

Brody had been surprised to learn how sick Carrie was, though it did help explain a few things for him. He had been relieved to hear that it wasn't going to turn into a case of his word against hers, he obviously wasn't going to have to kick too hard. She had already been removed and now nobody would believe a word she said about him anyway. It was convenient, really. He assured Estes that no charges would be brought, that he was just glad that she had sought help and would stay away from him and his family. Very charitable conduct from the Congressman, considering.

Brody wondered how Carrie had managed to come back from that. It wasn't as if she had just broken a leg or something. In the first seconds of his own personal earthquake Brody questioned whether that had all been false too, her illness fabricated for his benefit to provide a false enough sense of security for him to carry on, allowing the CIA to continue to watch him after the bunker plot had failed. In dark, reflective moments over the past few months he had felt guilty for having hurt Carrie in the cruelest possible way in order to save himself. He had stabbed her in an open wound. But hadn't she done just the same to him? Brody really couldn't tell which way was up any more. In his gut he knew that it rang true though, Carrie _had_ been ill and he thought that perhaps he had recognised it in her on some level. He knew all too well what it was like not to be able to rely on your own mind. So how could she be back in? The only conclusion he could draw was that they had uncovered some truth in what Carrie had been saying, and that they had brought her back in to resume her pursuit of himself and Nazir.

Roya advised him to check it out for himself, so he had invited Carrie to his hotel bar. He was convinced that he would be able to tell up close what her motivations were. He bristled at the thought of spending time alone with her again, he forced himself to concentrate on why he was there. And that alone. _Once bitten, twice shy_, he thought. He had made sure he had time for a drink alone before she arrived, just to steel himself. When she got there she was all smiles, jovial and breezy, complimenting him on his new career. He mentioned that Jess had kicked him out but she wasn't biting, wasn't flirting, she must have ruled out that tactic since last time. She was still beautiful. Her smile still stirred him. But he built an invisible wall around himself. She wouldn't breach it this time. She confirmed that she was back at work, in the same line of work. Chasing someone 'big', she said. He referred to their past together and she didn't bat an eyelid. She probably had similar conversations with lots of guys all day long, an occupational hazard given her methods of surveillance, he figured. And then he got to her. He asked her bluntly about the hospital, about what they had done to her there. And there it was. Just for a second her mask slipped. He saw the truth, saw a flash of the defiance she last showed him on the porch of her cabin, her anger at his involvement in her breakdown was etched all over her face, no matter how hard she tried to contain it. This wasn't a civilised drink to bury the hatchet, just like the cabin wasn't a romantic weekend in the woods. She had blinked first. He hadn't let her play him this time.

He had walked away from her feeling victorious, he had got what he needed. But it turned out that she still had cards up her sleeve. She had always been too much for him, one step ahead. He hoped that she was still on form now, that she had conjured up some miraculous means of getting him out of this. Brody knew deep down that it wasn't possible. He stared down at the gun in his hand. He didn't need to aim it at imaginary foes, he had plenty of real ones. The whole world was out to get him now.


	22. Chapter 22

When they arrested him he had consoled himself that whatever lay in store for him, it couldn't be on the scale of what he had endured as a prisoner of war. When they told him he was _off the grid _he began to panic that perhaps there were no rules, no human rights, for people like him, that perhaps it was all going to start again. They kept him up. He was so tired that he felt drunk. All he could think of was the snarl on Carrie's face in the hotel room and the fact she said that she had loved him, the two elements of the same conversation wildly at odds with each other, messing with his mind. Had she meant that last part? Was she exploiting him because she knew he had fallen for her? He tried to relax, to not play into their hands and drive himself half crazy before they even touched him.

Quinn started on him. He denied everything. But they had his video. How did they get hold of that? Had someone given him up? Roya maybe, because he had been so reluctant to get involved with this new plot? Had he been cut loose by Nazir? Quinn drove a fucking knife through his hand. It was starting. Brody prepared himself as he always had in the face of torture, meditating almost, visualising his nerve endings withdrawing inside his flesh like withering vines, detaching his body from his mind like train carriages decoupling, the very kernel of himself, his vital essence, retreating somewhere deep inside where their blows couldn't reach. He tried not to imagine what might come next. He was suspicious when two medics rushed out and bandaged his hand, gave him a shot that made the burning pain subside. He worried that they had injected him with something that could make him talk. He awaited the second round, he knew that these things only got progressively worse.

When it came, it came from Carrie. _Cruel_, he thought.

It was like an autopsy. Except he was still alive. Carrie came in and uncuffed him, applying her ether to his lungs, laying him out on the table and pinning him still. She slit him expertly, from his adam's apple to his navel. She talked to him in the way that one tends to speak of the dead, kind of fondly, casting their misdeeds in a shroud of empathy that you hardly ever extended to them in life. Carrie almost seemed to agree with his perspective, she seemed to recognise what had driven him to this point. Nobody else ever had, and probably ever would. She proceeded to remove his organs one by one, auditing them and laying them out on the table around him. As she did so she explained to him the ways in which each one was diseased, why his body was failing. His kidneys, his liver, his heart. At points she was elbow-deep in his chest cavity, rummaging around, unraveling his entrails. It felt intimate, he was glad she had switched off the cameras. She knew what she was doing. There was no blood, she worked cleanly and efficiently. He felt little physical pain throughout the whole process, only the sensation of being emptied out and scrutinised. He cried at times but it didn't feel altogether unpleasant. He realised he was a masochist. After she had hollowed him out, she put him back together once more, folding his peices back into his chest in the correct order and zipping him up again.

Carrie seemed to have this conviction that she was saving him from himself, but a version of himself that Nazir had created. She seemed to be suggesting that he was not solely responsible. She blamed Nazir. Brody wasn't sure he agreed with her but it was an explanation at least, and one that supported the idea that he was not a monster, and he so dearly wanted to believe that. She appeared to have a far higher opinion of him than he had of himself. She repeated that she had fallen in love with him. Why did she keep saying that? She didn't need to cajole him, he was already cooperating. He edged away tentatively from the corner of himself that belonged to Nazir, she coached him step by step as he cast off each of his lies. Until he finally took the leap of faith and dropped his suicide vest too, staggering desperately towards the haven she was promising, too exhausted to even entertain the notion that she was anything other than genuine. They were both relieved. They held hands. He would have given her anything she wanted if she had just promised not to let go.

In the car on the way home he had taken her hand again. He didn't know why. He just wanted to keep hold of her. Tonight for the first time he had faced up to what he had done, the effect he had wrought on her life. He had seen it for real this time and had apologised for hurting her. But he had stopped short of explaining. He felt purged but he was dissatisfied that he hadn't spoken out on that. He tried to transmit that through his hand holding hers. He hoped she could feel it. Brody was scared out of his mind at what might come next but he was glad that he would get to face it with Carrie. When she stopped the car, there were a hundred things he wanted to say to her. So many questions he wanted to ask. Actually, the rest could wait. There was just one thing he wanted to know: "_Did you mean what_ _you said?_". But he asked nothing, already scared it had just been another interrogative technique. She looked like she had been through the mill as much as he did. He thought about kissing her, asking if he could stay the night with her. He wanted to feel her fingers in his hair again, soothing his spinning head. Brody just wanted to sleep and he knew he would do so soundly if he could just be next to her. But the memory of her gaining his trust before and then snapping everything away, the possibility that she was still manipulating him, prevented him. He was too tired, too raw and she could use that to tie him up in new and ever more complicated knots. He got out of the car and went inside to Jess, just hoping that _she_ would make things easy for him, let him go to bed and face this new paradigm fresh tomorrow.

The following day he felt differently. The reality of what they were asking him to do was setting in. He felt like he had been assaulted. He had stared down at his hand. He had been. They, rather, Carrie had battered his defences until he sat there prone, wide open and ready to be moulded in her image. Wasn't what she had just done to him exactly what she had described happening to Brody at Nazir's hands? What made them so different? Nazir had given him back his dignity, offered him the love of Allah and Isa. Carrie had promised him peace. But he still had to earn it and there were no guarantees.

The previous night he had been in awe of her again. The following day he felt love and hate in equal measure. As long as the scales didn't tip in her favour he felt a modicum of control.

It dawned on him that he had just traded one puppet master for another.


	23. Chapter 23

It hadn't gone well.

Quinn got back into his car and slumped in the seat. Dar Adal was disgusted with him. Quinn was disgusted with himself. He was fucking black ops, he had a resplendent record up until now. He had been considered one of the best amongst those in the know, and there weren't that many who knew, so that had made Quinn even more of a rarity. He was asked if he had discovered any new intelligence that rendered the completion of his mission as per orders impossible, some reason why the assassination of Brody was suddenly ill-advised. Or had he just thought that Carrie and the Congressman were cute together? Quinn had tried to explain his reasons for not pulling the trigger. It didn't wash.

Dar Adal had reminded him that he was a soldier, not a CIA Analyst. His job was not to analyse, judge or even opine. His job was to maintain his cover until the order was given, get the job done cleanly and get the hell out. Same as ever. He accused Quinn of having gotten too cosy at Langley. Of having 'made friends'. Of having wilfully disobeyed orders. Of having thought he knew better than his superiors. Of arrogance.

Dar Adal knew Saul Berenson of old. Apparently he and Saul already had beaks and wings when the dinosaurs were still slithering out of the primordial soup trying to shed their gills. He said that Saul was once a force to be reckoned with but that he had gone soft, effete, landed up where he belonged, behind a desk playing politics and babysitting his intelligence officers while others with stronger stomachs rolled up their sleeves and got the real work done. Despite the denigration, Quinn noted that there seemed to be a grudging respect between the two old-timers. He suspected that this dressing down was in part due to the embarrassment caused by Saul knowing that Quinn was one of Dar Adal's and that Quinn had fucked up so spectacularly. The 200-plus bodies in the morgue had not been directly referenced. They didn't need to be.

He asked Quinn if he had taken a lead from Berenson and suddenly found a heart, developed a conscience. He said that if he had, he was no longer of any use in the real world. _The real world_. Is that what this was? The real world was quite a lonely place, where you had to be prepared to do some pretty terrible things in order to keep the average Joe secure in his cosseted version of events. That took steel, which Quinn used to pride himself on having in spades. He had only recently started to question it, and that hadn't worked out too well. A good marksman knew how to subdue his own heartbeat in order to prevent it meddling with his aim. Quinn figured that he might not like it sometimes but the real world, as Dar Adal had termed it, was all he now knew.

Quinn wondered if he wanted out, after all. Maybe it was time to stop living in the shadows? He could get himself his own place, stop sleeping with one eye open in his sleeping bag on top of the bed. He could try getting under the sheets at night, accumulate some stuff, leave it around the place instead of having his life packed inside his duffle bag, ready to receive the call to bail at any second. He could buy himself a kick-ass car, take a vacation, blow some of that cash sat wasting in the bank because he never got the opportunity to spend it. Maybe he could build some bridges with Julia, start to see John more regularly, be a real father to him. Make his mother proud, take care of her in the time she had left. Maybe he could settle down, start dating again, see the same girl on more than two occasions for a change..._nah_, he thought, he liked that bit. The truth was, Quinn wouldn't know where to start with any of those things. He wondered whether the whole black-ops-covert-assassin thing wasn't in fact a cover, an excuse so that he didn't have to deal with his own life.

The things he had seen, the deeds he had committed, the orders he had carried out, meant that Quinn would only ever sleep with one eye open, he would never rest easy with a mere deadlock on his door. Dar Adal knew it, because he was that way too.

Quinn had awaited the verdict but it never came. Dar Adal maybe hadn't even decided himself yet. He figured he would probably get a call in the middle of the night, telling him to catch a flight some place. Afghanistan, Iran, Kashmir. Oh man, he hoped it wasn't going to be Yemen. He could be posted abroad for some time, it all depended how mad Dar Adal was. For now he had sent him back to Saul, possibly the worst punishment of all, having to walk past the bomb site daily, having to see the mark his intervention, or non-intervention, had left on Saul, on Carrie. Having to see that motherfucker's suicide tape on the news 24/7.

He took a deep breath and looked at himself in the rear view mirror. Until he got that call he would do what he could to help.


	24. Chapter 24

It was deathly quiet in the cabin. Brody had forgotten that silence like this was even possible. He had spent the past few weeks in the midst of a waking nightmare, ricocheting between Roya, Nazir, his family and Carrie, feeling like he was careering towards certain disaster but not knowing at which pair of hands it would befall him. At least he now knew the extent of his comeuppance, he could appreciate its full size and shape, he no longer had to lay awake at night with the foreboding sitting cackling on his chest.

Far from proving to be his saviour as he had been coaxed to believe during his arrest, Carrie had just cauterised his autopsy wounds and sent him straight back into battle. Although she professed to care, she refused to relent even though he was clearly falling apart. The operation was paramount and she continued to use every trick in the book to ensure his cooperation. As much as he secretly craved it, Brody resented it, the way she looked at him, the way she touched him when they were alone. She had him over a barrel, she didn't need to flirt with him to make him comply. It insulted him that she would think he was that simple, that malleable. It hurt him to think that she could be callous enough to exploit him, especially when she was claiming to have feelings for him too, to use whatever it was that they had to get the job done.

So Brody tried to keep his emotions in check and shut her down any time she tried to employ any intimacy there was between them. He tried to switch that part of him off. Carrie had lost friends in the ambush at the tailor's shop in Gettysburg and assumed Brody had double-crossed her to Roya the first chance he got. She had burst into his office and let fly at him, all fists and venom, yelling fire. She knocked the air out of his lungs before he had a chance to raise his own arms to fend her off. She let up long enough to hear him denying it and while she paused to decide whether she believed him, she had crumbled in front of him, distraught. Brody reached for her hand slowly and bravely, as if attempting to diffuse a land mine. Eventually she allowed him to draw her near, Brody only taking the final step when he was confident that she wasn't going to erupt again. Every hair on his body stood on end at the proximity with hers. He hoped that she couldn't feel his gooseflesh through his shirt. He told himself that he just needed to do the decent human thing in comforting her. Under no circumstances was he to touch her hair, to wipe her tears away with his thumb or allow this to turn into any kind of caress. He told himself not to look into her eyes. Rather than embrace her, he simply allowed her to stand against him. But when she put her head on his shoulder he instinctively brought his hand up to hold it there, strands of her hair slipping betwixt his fingers and back under his skin like determined golden creepers. _You idiot_, he thought. He felt like his mind was agile enough to keep up with the twisting, turning games she played but that his fool heart let him down, coming lumbering up behind the rest of him with a much wider turning circle.

He had managed to hold her off until the weekend at the horse farm. Brody was a mess. Carrie seemed to understand how shaken he was feeling, how totally out of his depth he was. He told her about his conversation with Rex, a _real_ war hero, about how he had heaped praise on Brody, mistaking him for the mirage he had projected. Brody realised that if Rex believed in him, if it had been that easy to _seem_ like the person a guy like Rex respected, then why couldn't Brody have just _been_ him? But it was too late. Brody was already too far down this fucked up path, buried in layers of deceit. There wasn't a person on earth he hadn't lied to apart from Nazir and he was now being pushed into betraying him in the hugest way imaginable as well. Carrie understood. She even seemed to regret it as much as he did.

This time when she grabbed his hand he didn't pull away. He didn't hold hers right back but he did make the fatal mistake of taking a step closer, the rest of his body now in league with his heart in betraying him. He was dragged under Carrie's current before his mind had even agreed to surrender. While they kissed, he clutched at her body desperately trying to find some point of reference that was true to hold on to. He couldn't find one. But he couldn't stop himself either, so he just had to give up and go with it. He kissed her for every time he had thought about her since the cabin. He kissed her with all his remorse at having hurt her, with all his hope that she wasn't still playing him. He kissed her with all his sweet relief that she was back in his life. The feeling of her mouth on his made his entire body hum. He felt lightheaded, all his blood rushing south at just the very moment his wits required it. For a few moments, everything died away, all the clamouring voices, the demands, the seasickness. He just felt peace. "Is this for real?", he had asked her. Like he had wanted to ask her in the car after the interrogation. It felt real to him. The way she kissed him, her fingertips on the nape of his neck, brushing his ear, her shallow breathing, the way she pressed against him - it _seemed_ like it was real for her too. But he could not be sure and he couldn't assume. He knew he shouldn't trust her. She appeared as confused as he was, to the point of tears. The faintest glimmer that she might be genuine spurred him on. He kissed her fiercely again, keeping his eyes open this time just in case she did too, trying to catch her out. Not even Carrie could fake _this. _Brody had been on the cusp, just about to accept the abandon and allow Carrie to dash him against the rocks, to drown him, when that paranoid shriek from deep inside rescued him and dragged him back to the surface. He couldn't afford to indulge when it was taking all he had just to stay alive.

And that's all he had been doing throughout all this, just staying alive, no time to think, just time to dodge the most immediate threat at any given moment. Just like all he had done to get through Iraq was simply _not_ _die_. It had gone on so long now that he had forgotten that life was supposed to be about anything other than just surviving, scraping by with his nerves shattered but his lungs still full. He had been right when he remembered that these things got progressively worse. It soon reached fever pitch, his ears whistling and his blood boiling from the pressure of it all. Carrie had been there for him. She hadn't saved him completely like he wished she would, she made it clear that there was no way out unless he fashioned it himself. But she was there every time it threatened to overwhelm him, she scraped him off the floor and yanked him down from the ceiling.

Then, that night at the motel she had finally made him believe. Maybe he had just been ready to accept it, too broken now to keep second-guessing her. She didn't have to take the risk in bringing him there but she had done so to give him some room to breathe, some oxygen untainted by panic. She said she could lead him, both of them, out of this. He wanted to hang on to that. The fact that there was an exit, the fact he wasn't on his own. He wanted to hang on to her. He still didn't believe it was possible but he was done thinking now, he was all too happy to let her take the reigns. He just wanted to be told what to do. She mentioned a future for them and it perplexed him on both counts; that there _could_ _be_ a future and that she would want anything to do with _him_ if there was one. After all he had done. After she had seen him for what he was. She promised him that he could still rectify things, he could still wash out these stains. She would help him. It was what he needed to hear. She kissed him to hammer home her point and he pulled her to him in acceptance. He saw no point in holding back any more. They had set the dogs on him, after all. Like when he had kissed her in the woods, he tried to make his actions count. He channeled the thwarted impulses she had extorted from him, every urge he had ignored when she had run her hand up his arm and all his confused frustration from the horse farm into making her come. He fucked her like he had promised himself he would do if he ever got the chance again. For every guilty moment he had spent catching his breath next to Jess with Carrie on his mind. Brody recognised that it was a very male instinct he was acting on, almost to the point that he felt ashamed. But he couldn't stop it. It wasn't in keeping with the solace that she had offered him, the tenderness. Carrie didn't seem to mind anyway, digging her fingernails deep into his back as they held on to each other for dear life.

Later that night she had held him down and showed him that she meant it, too. Tenderly, like he wished he could have been with her earlier if he hadn't have been so pent up. She made love to him. He knew the difference and he felt humbled by her. She evoked all his sensations and emotions from the last time they were together at the cabin, laying them out before them and confirming them as genuine. He liked her taking control. She had even held his wrists above his head at one stage while she leant in to kiss him. She would not let him doubt her. He had wriggled free to hold on to her hips as she rocked him gently, only quickening the pace when she felt that they were both close. She exhaled into his mouth and he swallowed her breath as they kissed, as if she was administering him first aid. He felt like she was dissolving into him, replenishing parts of him that were running dangerously low. She promised him it was real and he believed her.

He decided that if this wasn't true then nothing in this world was, and if that was the case he wanted no part in it anyway.

Let them lock him away. Let them execute him.


	25. Chapter 25

Brody didn't see it coming. He heard it a split second before, too late for him to react, like a missile coming in on target. A boot slammed into his jaw, viciously twisting his head on its axis, sending blood and teeth sailing far across the room. It sent him spinning across the floorboards, finally coming to rest on his back, leaving his stomach and groin exposed and ready for a torrent of fists, another flurry of boots. He peered up. _Hamid_? It couldn't be. Brody couldn't see through the blur of pain and panic, he could just make out a towering figure who was grimacing, maybe laughing. Oh yes, definitely laughing. Brody had rolled onto his side, clutching his stomach, his lungs leeching air, threatening to not re-inflate when he next sucked in. He could make out the planes of the room, he knew what was wall and what was floor and he could just about see a cruel smudge of light that must have been the window. It always helped him to figure out the dimensions of a room when he was taking a beating, as if reminding himself that things had edges and definition, a space where they were and a space where they weren't, and that by extension the pain he was feeling must do too. It would be over soon, one way or another, just as sure as that table had four legs. He could feel blood pooling in his ear. He coughed bile onto the floor. _So you've found me, even here_, Brody whispered. In response he felt something heavy come down furiously, repeatedly, on his lower spine making his arms and legs extend from under him like shot tendrils. He wanted Carrie, he wanted Jess, anyone who would make it stop. He called out for Nazir. He was pulled up by his hair into a sitting position, made to face his assailant but he still couldn't focus, already losing his grip on consciousness. A final fist delivered him into blackness, the few fleeting images he saw before fainting were the negatives of old family photos.

He came to and found that he was slid against the cabin wall, the floor scraped where his feet had pedalled frantically in one spot, trying to motor himself away from the apparition. He had splinters in his hands. His blood fizzed and he was sheeted in sweat. Brody wanted to put his head between his knees and bring his breathing under control. They had taught him the importance of this in the couple of support group sessions he had attended, told him that without it you could set yourself off again. But he wasn't ready to let go of the wall yet. The wall was definitely real and for as long as he touched it he felt that the flashback couldn't recommence. He brought his trembling hand to his jaw. Cold and clammy but not bloody and broken. His stomach wasn't tender and his back hadn't snapped. It was okay. He was okay. As soon as he ascertained that he was not physically hurt, Brody started to cry, head against the wall. No matter where he was, no matter what the situation, this would always happen to him and there was nothing he could do. Whether he was driving to the grocery store ten minutes away from home or in the middle of a sexual reverie in a cabin across the Canadian border, that boot could still find him. He would always be dragged back there and he would always scream for Nazir to make it stop. Maybe he hadn't changed, after all. Maybe he was still just one beating away from committing mass murder in his saviour's name, if he would only assure him that it would all go away. Tears streamed down his face. Not even Nazir could save him now though. His annihilator, his architect, was gone.

Brody reminded himself that he hadn't always been this weak. He used to have some self respect, he used to fight back. But torture isn't a dance you forget the steps to, no matter how long it has been since you last took to the floor. Just the opening bars from the band were enough to send him scurrying for cover these days. In the beginning, whatever they meted out to him, he used to give it back. He had his pride, he was representing the U.S. marines and he was adamant that he would go down fighting. If sport was what this was all about, the reason they hadn't immediately shot him, Brody would make sure they didn't forget him in a hurry even after they'd buried him. They had laughed at him. They had stamped on his hands so hard that he couldn't make a fist. So he kicked out, used his elbows, his knees. He once broke Hamid's nose by head-butting him. Where he surpassed them in technique and training, they vanquished him in pure sadism. They strung him up and lashed him. They applied crude electrodes to his body, passed current through him, made him jag and smoulder. They stabbed at him with blunt instruments, twisting his wounds ever wider. They were always armed, stronger or more numerous than him.

He quickly learned that if his jailer was angry, his beating would be more intense and he would have to endure greater pain for a shorter period before passing out. Brody preferred this. This came to constitute a good day in his book. That, and a lack of fecal matter in his food. So he would provoke them. He spat at them, he called their mothers names in Arabic, he was insolent. If he got lucky, he thought, they would be so mad they would kill him inadvertently. But they always stopped short. He cursed them. Hamid in particular soon recognised this ploy and although he was unable to control his temper when Brody taunted him, he just resolved to spend the time that he was unconscious on the ground to devise new and ingenious ways to brutalise him the second he woke up. There was no way to win so Brody eventually just stopped trying. He couldn't remember how long it took them to break him entirely. Probably not all that long. The passing of days and nights lost meaning to him, he could only chart time through the changing of his guards' shifts and the pause between beatings. Now, if any aggression surfaced, if any impulse to retaliate rose in Brody's chest he swallowed it hard, pushing it deep down into his stomach, burying it and crushing it like a lump of carbon squashed by centuries of magma, concentrating itself into a diamond. Nazir would later cut and polish that diamond to his liking. He took great care in crafting it; it was, after all, destined to be the centrepiece of his life's work.

Looking back, Brody supposed that when they succeeded in getting him to beat Tom Walker to death his disintegration as a human being had been complete. The memory of it never failed to make him sick. They had hauled him out of the cell where he had been for what seemed like days, suspended in utter darkness. The sudden reintroduction of light into Brody's world had been enough to drive him crazy alone. They had then held a gun to his head. If it had just been as simple as that there would have been no question, he would have let them pull the trigger on him before he hurt Tom. But they told him that Tom had tried to save his own skin by betraying Brody. They said he had given up details on U.S. positions. They knew things about Jess and his kids. They said that Tom had given them his address. They said that Hamid's cousin lived in Chicago but that he was on his way to pay Brody's family a visit. They explained what he had been instructed to do to them. Tom looked half dead already. Brody would never forget it. The sound of his fists relentlessly beating his sniper partner, _his friend_, still provided the percussion to his nightmares. The memory of his bloodied knuckles blasting Tom's body, the horrific yield he felt after each blow - like punching wet sand - no bone, no structure left for his flailing jabs to glance off. That feeling was the texture of Brody's terror itself. Brody had wished their positions were reversed. When Tom slumped to the floor and his throat stopped rattling, they said he was gone. They congratulated Brody. They petted him. They had turned him into Nazir's attack dog. Carrie would say that they had obliterated his morals, his love, made him feel like he could never go back to Uncle Sam even if he could have escaped. He had a new master now. All that was left to do was provide him with a new doctrine and a mission. While Brody could see the truth to Carrie's explanation of his conditioning, he still didn't accept the last part. Islam was not a doctrine and Nazir had not forced it upon him, he just left it around where Brody could find it for himself. He was infinitely thankful that he had found Allah. As for a mission, Nazir had provided Brody with the method, the specifics, which Brody now held to be wrong. The motivation, the determination however, had come from deep within Brody himself, the desire to expose Walden and his administration for the casual murder of innocents. Carrie said that Brody exhibited all the classic symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome towards Nazir. Maybe. But he knew that there was much truth in the adage that one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter. Brody still felt enormous affinity for Nazir, even though he now recognised that he had done something sinister to him. The final affront that Nazir had framed him for Langley had been the hardest blow to bear.

Brody was still shaking, still sobbing. He had killed Tom twice for Nazir. The second time was easier. He had figured that Tom must have been through the same sort of experience as Brody had. He had turned up ready to play his part in the bunker plot, he had shot Elizabeth Gaines. The FBI had staged a manhunt for him, his photo had been all over the place. Tom had no video though, his shock currency not as strong as Brody's due the latter's media profile and later dalliance with public life. Brody remarked to himself that he had actually done Tom a favour in the end, he had saved him from a fate similar to his own. He wished Tom had exacted his revenge and shot Brody in the face in that alleyway that night.

Carrie had assured Brody that he was a good man. Brody knew that she was wrong. His gaze settled on the backpack, where Carrie's gun lurked. He could readdress the balance right now and switch all this off forever if he chose to. Brody swiped his forearm across his face in an attempt to clear away some tears so that he could think clearly for a second.

The constant feeling of being under seige, the unrelenting white noise inside his head. He just needed it all to stop.

He crawled over to the bag and hovered there, suddenly aware of his pulse in his wrists, his groin, his neck.


	26. Chapter 26

Saul's cell phone hadn't stopped ringing since Carrie had stormed out, her car screeching off his driveway a few seconds after she had slammed his door. None of the calls were from her. She didn't back down easily, he knew that. He sat in his kitchen trying to finish his coffee in peace before it went off again. He felt better for his shower but worse for having slept a little, like he had reminded his body of what it was missing and now it was pissed with him. He wondered when Mira would text him her flight details. He couldn't wait to hold her close. Saul had wished for months that she would realise that she missed him and come home again, for good this time. He was unable to demand it and thereby imply that _his_ location, _his_ job, _his_ crusade was any more important than hers. He hadn't bargained on something like this being the prompt for her to book her flight, for their stubborn standoff to cease. He told himself not to get his hopes up, nothing was fixed between them, in fact his work was only going to intrude on his life more now and make a reconciliation with Mira more difficult. But when it came to it, when she thought he had been in mortal danger and then when she recognised that he had just really needed her, Mira had wanted to be here. That was something at least. That they loved each other dearly was never in doubt, the doubt had crept in when they realised that even love might not be enough to keep them together after all.

Saul had called Maggie straight after his fight with Carrie. They quickly discovered that Carrie had lied to them both about her having been with the other the previous night. Maggie was furious that Carrie had not been by her house, worried for her state of mind, the chemicals in her bloodstream, Saul guessed. She was obviously mad at Saul too for not taking better care of her sister, given the circumstances, but she was too polite to let that out. That was where the two sisters differed, Saul mused. Maggie quickly realised that Saul probably had many things on his mind, her crazy sister not the top of his list of concerns right now. Saul contradicted her, Carrie was actually his prime concern, both personally and professionally. Maggie asked him how things were going, if Congressman Brody really had done what they were saying he had done. Saul simply replied that this was why he needed to track down Carrie, to help him figure all this out. He wasn't sure how much Maggie knew about Carrie and Brody's relationship, whether Maggie knew that Carrie had been about to jettison the career she so loved for the man in the vest. He explained that they had fought, that Carrie was agitated after the bomb and may need medical attention. He asked Maggie if something like this could trigger a severe episode. What Saul had seen from Carrie today was nothing on the scale of her terrifying state before she was hospitalised but he wondered if it was looming over the horizon. Maggie said that it could rapidly turn that way, she would need to assess her. There was trepidation in her voice. Maggie would drop what she was doing and try to find her sister. Saul hung up and sighed heavily, lamenting his failure to contain Carrie's predictable wrath. He tried calling Carrie's cell himself and wasn't remotely surprised when she didn't pick up.

Saul yawned. He needed to get back to work.

Saul had received word from the highest office that promised a full and thorough investigation of the CIA's failure to prevent this attack, of how this 'calamitous fucking mess' had been allowed to happen right under their noses. Certain malicious elements, and a few of their cousins at the FBI would be loving it, of course. Not outwardly, needless to say, some of their number had been present at the memorial after all. But there were those among the establishment who would take a sick pleasure in watching this play out. Heads were going to roll. Saul asked himself how many heads were left. Only his, really. He wondered how he was going to protect Carrie from the attendant shitstorm. The CIA was about to become a rabid dog savaging its own tail because there was nobody else around to bite. Perhaps his job wouldn't stand between him and Mira for much longer.

He had another call confirming that the blast at Langley had come from Brody's SUV but that there was no trace of the man himself amongst the wreckage. The device had been detonated remotely, probably by cell phone. The race was now on to identify and differentiate between all outstanding human remains in that auditorium. If they didn't turn up some Congressman teeth pretty damn soon then Saul had a serious problem. His head wouldn't just roll, it would be kicked into orbit. He started to smooth his hair down over the back of his head repeatedly. He put a call in to the techs trying to recover the CCTV footage from Langley. Still nothing useful. He asked them to keep trying and also whether the footage from the streets and highways surrounding Langley both in the periods before the memorial and after the bomb was ready for review. He wanted to be able to count every soul into campus that morning. And any soul out that afternoon. Saul's very bad feeling was getting worse.

Maggie called again. No answer from Carrie's cell. She wasn't at home either. Maggie was en route to their family's cabin, just in case she had headed there to be alone. It had been known before. Saul thanked Maggie sincerely and assured her that he just had her sister's best interests at heart. He truly did. He asked himself if he had failed Carrie in letting Estes drag her back to Beirut, allowing her back into the fold after she was found to have been right all along about Brody. He could have pushed for them to leave her to her gardening and her teaching job. She might be safe now if he had. Safe, but half dead inside. He recalled the night that he reinstated her self belief by playing her Brody's video. It was the most beautiful gift he could ever have given her. Saul shook his weary head, concluding that you couldn't obscure a beacon that bright with a blanket.

He picked up his keys decisively but then slouched back onto his stool, inertia setting in at the thought of returning to the bomb site.

Perhaps this bear had been dancing in the circus too long, he thought.


	27. Chapter 27

Brody knelt down next to the backpack. His hands shook. He stuffed them tight in his pockets to contain it but he felt the tremor creeping up his forearms.

"Are you _sure_ you're not a monster, Brody?".

"You _are_ a good person.".

She had said both to him. Carrie's voice rang out in the cabin, alternating between the two sentences over and over. Two verdicts on his character. Brody closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. He didn't know anymore. It was like trying to choose whether to bet on red or black on the roulette wheel. He felt that either outcome was equally possible. He knew that it wasn't healthy that he should be so ambivalent.

He took the gun out of the bag and half dropped it on the cabin floor in front of him, as if it was white hot to the touch. He span it to see which direction the muzzle would point to when it eventually came to rest. _Red, black, red, black, red, black, red._

He counted his crimes, lives he had ended or at best just blighted. Tom. The tailor. Walden. Nazir. Jess. Dana. Chris. Carrie. He noted that most of them were in fact his loved ones. That's how effective he had been. Carrie had stopped him from going much further on two occasions. She had saved him from himself twice. She wasn't here to save him now though.

He had been primed to take the lives of Walden and his team in the bunker as retribution for the routine murder of innocents in the War on Terror. They were criminals. He had been willing to die to avenge the death of Isa and 80 other little kids like him, to draw attention to the other drone attacks that devastated schools and villages that were covered up, considered a necessary evil. Shrugged off by the leaders of a so-called civilised, democratic society. He had later colluded with Roya in preparation for the retaliatory mass murder of innocents on American soil. He didn't understand how he had been induced to make that leap.

His own hypocrisy, his own contradiction, smacked him in the face, not for the first time. But that was the difference in him, he could see it a lot clearer now. He was an expert in the absurdity of war from having lived in the eye of the storm for so long.

Carrie claimed that he could right his wrongs by giving them Nazir. So hadn't the score now been settled? Had Brody redeemed himself? Perhaps, but only in her eyes. He was glad of that, at least. They had that, finally. As much as he loved her he knew he could only bring her misery. He wasn't going to get to cook for her, do her laundry, make sure she took her meds. They would never believe her when she tried to prove his innocence and she would never let it go. She would only end up back in the gurney. Brody closed his eyes and swallowed hard, his Adam's apple throbbing at the thought of her smile tethered by lithium, her tiny frame drowned in a hospital robe. Perhaps it would have been better for Carrie if she hadn't chosen to believe him after the memorial, if she had pulled the trigger herself.

_Red, black, red, black, red, black._

Everyone else now believed that he and Nazir were one and the same. Perhaps they had been for some time.

When all was said and done Brody _had_ flicked that switch. He couldn't get that out of his head. It was his one defining act. He hadn't confessed that yet, not even to Carrie. She thought Dana had talked him down before he got the chance, that he had made the decision not to go through with it for himself. He wondered if that would change her view of him, the knowledge that he had actually taken that final step. If Allah had willed it, his vest would have gone up, taking Brody, Walden and all the other miserable sons of bitches in that bunker with them. The intent had been there, the will to spill blood, to sacrifice himself in doing so. Brody's suicide video would have played on every news station in every country of the world. The justification for his actions would have been heard by anyone who cared to listen. For every thousand people he horrified, he might have made a handful stop and think for a moment, to ask questions. His kids' lives would have been ruined. Their father would have been gone, leaving them as children of the blue-eyed bomber to face the music. They would have been disgusted by him. Brody wondered if they would remember the Battle of Gettysburg, if they had taken in anything of what he had tried to say to them so pointedly the day they had visited the site. They would have been ostracised for bearing his name, bullied at school. Perhaps Jess would have moved them away some place to start over. Maybe they would have eventually taken on Mike's name instead to hide their shame.

Brody hadn't been responsible for Langley but he asked himself what the difference was. His video was playing on loop regardless. Walden was dead anyway, some of his team would now have joined him in hell. Nazir had got what he had wanted. Jess and the kids' lives were shattered, they would have had to go to ground by now. They thought he had done this. The result was the same.

He may as well have done it and stayed true to his fucking word.

He closed his hand around the pistol grip.

The net difference was that Brody was still alive. And precisely what was that worth now? His heart was still pumping but everything he held dear was lost to him. Brody contemplated a future of cowering in dark corners like this, just him, his hallucinations and his gun. Him and the gun. If not now, then how long before the gun won out?

He thought of his kids, of Jess. He still loved her, of course. Brody had been with Jess so long that asking him to stop loving her would have been like asking his hair to stop growing, demanding that he never blinked again. Even if it hadn't been for Carrie, he knew that he couldn't have stayed with them. Jess understood that things couldn't be fixed but the kids wouldn't have grasped why he had to go. They would just have felt rejected. Of course, they now had an alternative explanation. Plain old rejection by a father figure was something borne by a lot of people the world over, it's capacity to marr a life significant, but not insurmountable. Your father turning out to be a terrorist, a mass murderer and a traitor to your family and entire nation was a slightly different thing, he reasoned. He worried for Chris mostly, not even across the threshold of puberty and already full of rage and self-loathing. Jess would need to watch him.

Hadn't he come too far just to end up this way? Brody slowed his breathing, drawing air in deeply, nostrils flaring, holding it down and then pushing the air back out steadily, eyes closed. The marine in him took over. He needed to think calmly, he couldn't just blow his head off in a jangle of adrenalin and self-hatred. He tried to summon his powers of logic. He noted that his breathing had returned to normal but that his right foot was jiggling uncontrollably.

He thought about turning himself in. Walking to the nearest pay phone and calling 911. They would take him alive but he would never see the light of day again. He would keep Carrie out of it, say he escaped on his own. She would have to stand back and watch it happen. Could he trust her to do that? Maybe he would even take the wrap for Langley. He felt like he deserved it. Would they apply the death penalty? Probably, but he would get a long stay while the examined every atom of what he knew about Nazir and Al-Qaeda. Endless interrogation. Maybe they would let Dana visit him, in return for information, and he could explain it all to her? Brody laughed at himself. Dana would refuse to come within ten miles of him. The CIA, the FBI and whatever other nefarious forces there were lurking would torture the fuck out of him, officially or not. He knew he couldn't take much more and besides, he would be scared of implicating Carrie for his escape, for Walden. She would be an accessory. Languishing in the cell across from his, just like she had said. All for them to put him down like a dangerous dog at the end of it. No, he couldn't have that. That would not honour Isa. He would rather die at his own hand for the things he _had_ done than at theirs for the things he hadn't done. Carrie would understand.

Or he could keep on running. Make his way through Carrie's map's red dots, hope that she'd come for him one day. If he was going he would have to get himself together and leave soon, he would want to arrive at the next dot while there was still plenty of daylight. He didn't feel capable right now, he was still spooked. If he went, he could eventually make his way to the nearest big town or city, stake out the local mosque, beg them to take him in. What was he thinking? They'd hand him in as soon as look at him. Nobody would want to associate with a man like Brody. His first instinct had been to get as far away as possible as quickly as he could. He could try to catch a train maybe, sleeper service in the dead of night. Or a flight to a country with no extradition treaty. He thought about CCTV and border control and the inevitable lockdown at stations and airports in the aftermath of an incident like this, the sheer amount of people milling around travel hubs. Would it be better to let things die down a little first? He wondered how long things would take to _die down_ after the biggest atrocity on American soil since 9/11. He could go live somewhere remote, but hide in plain sight. Brody doubted that 'plain sight' existed for people like him. He bit the side of his mouth.

Sweat beaded at his temples, he was every bit the trapped animal. Brody had read once somewhere that if a coyote got ensnared, come sunrise when it began to feel too exposed and vulnerable it would go as far as gnawing off its own leg in order to get free.

He raised the gun to his head and squeezed his eyes tight shut, clenching his jaw.

Brody had flicked the switch. He _was_ a monster. He asked himself if he dared flick it again now that there was no point to make, nobody to rage against, to punish for all the unfathomable shit he had been through. He wondered how much of it was politics, how much was this noble ideology and how much of it was his own personal spite at the damage _his_ life had sustained through being duped into fighting in a war that turned out not to be what he thought it was. He really was a worthless son of a bitch.

But she loved him. In spite of everything, Carrie saw something in him worth salvaging. Brody thought about all the goodbyes he had ever said. To his mother before he left for Iraq, her clutching on to his shoulders, inconsolable. To Jess the night that they agreed they couldn't continue to limp on together, her hand resting on his over the gear lever out of habit, until she realised that habits would have to change. To Nazir when they had prayed together for the last time, their embrace outside the mill feeling like the most natural thing in the world. To Carrie on that dirt track just the night before, even though she had refused to accept that it _had_ _been_ a goodbye. He could still feel the weight of her in his arms. He could still hear her sniffing back tears, asking him wide-eyed how it could be that this was so painful.

Outside the cabin the clouds brewed, rumbling as if rumour of a fight amongst their number was spreading fast. As they gathered round each other ready for something salacious to begin, the colour seeped out of the forrest, the vivacity in a legion of greens cranked down several notches.

The rising wind flapped a loose piece of felt against the roof.

Brody lay prostrate on the cabin floor, oblivious.


	28. Chapter 28

Carrie screeched down the road, shaking her head violently and muttering 'Fucking _neutralised_?!', to herself. Stopping at the lights and taking care not to stall this time, she suddenly became aware of herself as the guy in the passenger seat of the car pulled level with hers shot her a screwy look. As if she was mentally ill or something. She hadn't actually meant to blow up at Saul at the slightest provocation but she had found that she couldn't contain it. Part of it was her horror at lying to him like that, it had made her panic, the grounding that her solid relationship with him provided suddenly no longer there. She knew that he didn't deserve it and she knew that he had barely even got started with the questions. She would have lie more to him, lie harder. She felt nauseous. She switched on some music and blew out a long, long breath.

She left her car on the other side of the Langley campus, nearer to the building where she had visited Saul earlier this morning. She didn't want to see the auditorium again. Ordinarily she would have used the sight of the outrage to galvanise her, to give her the extra impetus to go after the perpetrators and shut them down. There was nothing ordinary about her reaction to this whole thing though. Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket and she ignored it. The place was spookily deserted but she got security to unlock an empty office a few doors down from the one she had found Saul in, childishly not wanting to take the room next to his since they were fighting.

She flopped down in the chair, slapped her laptop down on the desk in front of her and put her head in her hands. Interrupted again by her cell, she reached down and switched it off without even glancing at the caller display. She just wanted Brody. She hated not knowing where he was. Carrie logged on and started scanning the regular news sites for coverage of the incident and of the 'CIA bomber, Congressman Nicholas Brody'. She moved on to chat rooms, social media, those sites either side of the political divide that she routinely monitored. Forums on the edges of the internet and the periphery of reason itself. All of human imagination, human ingenuity, bias and insight was represented. So was the inhumanity that only human beings were capable of, seeping out of the lurid soup of zeros and ones. Some of the stuff she read was plain inaccurate, some was clearly invented and some was built of this vilest poison. Her eyes stung. All she seemed to do was cry these days.

One of the news sites linked to Brody's 'astonishing suicide video in full'. Suicide video. She was glad that the assumption he was dead had taken root. Carrie had seen the video a hundred times, she knew it word for word. She had watched it back constantly when Saul first returned from Beirut, Brody's speech becoming like a mantra that ran uninterrupted in her head, reinforcing the blossoming realisation, then the calm assertion and finally the concrete surety that _she had been right all along_. She wasn't just a basket case. It had saved her and it had come just in time, as she had just been facing up to the notion that perhaps she didn't know herself deep down, she wasn't conscious of her own limits after all. Carrie had been fundamentally shaken to think that for all her prescience, her startling hunches and her 'insight bordering on witchcraft' (as Quinn had kindly put it), she could still be so vastly, supremely wrong and so massively bested by her condition. For the first time she had begun to accept that it was bigger than her. Until now, it had won a few bouts but Carrie had come out on top overall, slight contusions but wits intact. She was scared for the future if this shift between her and _it_ really had occurred. But the video evidence rescued her, it had redeemed her and devastated her all at the same time.

Carrie clicked the mouse but kept her finger depressed knowing the video wouldn't buffer until she released it. Did she really want to watch it again? Should she really be doing this right now? She couldn't help it, she just wanted to see his face. Except it wasn't really his face. Not how she knew it. It was hard and stony and serious. It had been all those things on the fire road where she had left him, but there he had the softness and placidity she knew too. The video showed a soldier's face contemplating his advance into a battle that he wouldn't come back from. He stood bolt upright, uniform pristine. She would liken him to a robot except there was too much intensity in the way he spoke his words. Explaining why his side was the right side. She didn't want to hear his twisted logic all over again, so she muted her laptop. She just watched the black and white footage intently, like she had watched him for all those many hours when he was a freshly released POW. She was comforted by the familiarity of it, of just having him there on the screen in front of her, no matter what he was up to. She watched his mouth moving, saw his eyes flash when he emphasised a point. They were the same eyes she had seen up close, the pair that had fixed her dead or drawn her in depending on his mood, whether they were friends or foes. She remembered the way they creased when he was amused, playing dumb and asking her what she wanted when he knew full well what she wanted, as she slid over to him on the jetty by the lake only a few days ago. They were the same pair, pinked-rimmed from smoke and dust and without a trace of malice, that had implored her to believe him in Saul's office. At those memories, the tears started again. Why was she doing this to herself? She tried to get a grip, zoning in on Brody's dancing mouth, recognising the exact point in his monologue he had reached and joining in, whispering his misguided words in unison with him, dubbing his video with her own voice.

Carrie faltered, she had messed up on the script. She had been spouting a line about Walden while Brody had moved on to something else. Ever the pedant, she ran back the video and switched the sound back on to join in at the appropriate juncture and get it right this time. Something was awry. She looked at the time bar under the video. One minute twenty two, it said. Carrie clearly remembered staring at the time bar before and having the figures 1:47 stare back at her, reflecting on the fact that 1:47, 107 seconds of video, had been all it took to reverse the judgment on her sanity, to get her her job and her life back.

Twenty five missing seconds. This was _the_ _astonishing video in full._ Where were they? It struck Carrie that the more pertinent question was '_What were they?_'. She sprang up from the desk, casting around for something, tools, equipment supplies. She grabbed her bag. Saul's post-its. Perfect.

Quinn knocked softly on the door and stepped into the office, holding a can of Dr. Pepper. He wasn't sure that a carbonated drink would be good for the stomach trouble he was experiencing today but he felt he needed the sugar.

"Carrie, you're still here? I saw the light on. Where's Saul? What are you doing all the way down the hall. Are you okay? You look kind of...um..._?_". He knew that was too many questions.

"Go ahead. _Say it_. Make my fucking day!", snapped Carrie, impatient because he had interrupted her train of thought.

Quinn raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands to his chest in an unconscious '_whoah there' _gesture. He saw that her cheeks were wet, shining as the tracks caught the light, although she didn't seem to be crying anymore.

"Sorry. I'm just _busy_, is all. There is _so_ much to be done.", Carrie said, now standing in the middle of the room, edging backwards. It was preferable not to be still for a second, not to lose momentum.

"Okay, so if there's nothing I can help with...I was looking for Saul, I said I'd meet him back here.", Quinn said cautiously.

"How the hell should I know where _he_ is?", shrugged Carrie with a scowl. She took hold of a marker pen and swept it horizontally across the whiteboard on the far wall of the office with all the spite of a woman slashing at the throat of her enemy with a barber's razor.

Quinn wondered what the hell had gone on this morning in the time he had been gone. He wondered if Carrie had found out about his orders to assassinate Brody. While she hadn't exactly welcomed him with open arms, her ire seemed to be directed more at Saul, so he guessed not. Maybe a posting in Yemen wouldn't be so bad, he thought, less hostile. Assuming correctly that he had been dismissed, he turned to leave and as he did so he caught sight of Brody's face frozen on Carrie's laptop.

Just before he had closed the door behind him she called him back. "Quinn. When you're done drinking, are you going to toss that can in the recycling?".

Quinn looked at her, baffled. "Um, yes ma'am.", he said. She really was crazy.

"And do you recycle as a matter of course?", she asked, businesslike.

"Sure.", he lied, "It would be a waste not to, right?". He was sure that was the correct answer but he was exaggerating if not lying, it was one of the things he had resolved to do once John had been born. Saving the planet for your first born to inherit would be something that a lot of people must promise but rarely stick to, he mused. It wasn't the only promise he had broken with regard to his son, he reminded himself. "And this matters because...?", he asked her, exasperated.

"No reason.", said Carrie, already turned back to her whiteboard.


	29. Chapter 29

Saul was on his cell, trying to wind up the call. He was biting his lip, trying not to lose his temper. "National _fucking_ Security Advisor.", he muttered at Quinn by way of explanation after he hung up. Quinn noted that Saul was wearing fresh clothes but that the stoop he seemed to have developed overnight was still with him.

Quinn had walked down the corridor urgently as soon as he had seen him coming. He looked disconcerted, paler than usual. Dar Adal had obviously not gone easy on him. Saul still didn't know how he felt about it. Quinn had failed to follow orders but Saul considered those orders and the agenda that prompted them to have been repugnant. Saul might just have done the same, had he been in Quinn's shoes. Dar Adal would have told Quinn that he was in good company at the CIA, that Saul had a soft belly and could be relied upon to take the moral high ground. Dar Adal would ask who died and made Saul arbiter of right and wrong, hadn't he been around long enough to know that the boundary between the two shifted back and forth like the tide, after all? Quinn had done the right thing. _Tell that to 212 grieving families_, thought Saul. He wondered whether the black ops mission would make the cut into the official report on the matter. He figured that there was no reason to cover it up if those responsible for issuing the dubious orders were dead, their motives could no longer be called into question and they had even been proven kind of right if Brody had been involved. Walden and Estes might even be cast in angelic light, as the heroes who were working to try and prevent the attack, even before they knew it was on the cards. Saul grimaced, he knew how things went and it made him sick.

"Shall we?", Saul ushered Quinn into his new office.

As soon as Saul had put his bag down on the desk and Quinn opened his mouth to speak, Saul's cell rang again. Quinn listened to Saul trying to placate somebody for the second time in two minutes.

"Maggie Mathison. Her sister took off, she switched off her cell and we can't find her. I'm worried she might not be coping.", came Saul's curt explanation of this latest call.

"As in Agent Carrie Mathison, the CIA's own Joan of Arc?", said Quinn.

Saul shot Quinn a _don't-fuck-with-me_ look over his glasses.

"Try looking three doors down the hall, Saul. Last I saw of her she was acting nutty, bawling over that video of America's Most Wanted and waving a sharpie around. I warn you, she seems pissed at _someone_.", Quinn chirped, pleased he had finally been granted the opportunity to speak.

Saul looked to the heavens and exhaled. He dialled Maggie and they spoke for a while. Quinn listened again, feeling like a spare part. "Maggie's on her way, she'll be right here.", came Saul's now customary call summary.

Quinn frowned. "Forgive me, but is this situation a little...?"

"Irregular?...Ludicrous?..._Untenable_?", Saul finished his sentence, speaking Quinn's mind. "You bet it is, but I'm damn sure there's no precedent. There's no protocol for this. Not that anyone around here follows protocol anyhow.". Saul raised an eyebrow at his colleague. Point made.

Saul and Quinn discussed the modus operandi with Roya, the developing intelligence coming through from the blast, analysis of early web 'chatter' on the incident and how they would divide up tasks once the extra agents Saul had been promised finally showed up. Quinn was looking forward to getting on with something to distract him. Saul left Carrie working alone in her office. When Maggie arrived, he sent Quinn down to collect her from front desk. While he was doing so, Saul pushed back in his chair and rubbed his beard before reluctantly getting up and meandering down the hall to Carrie's room.

His tone was conciliatory, his movements slow. He didn't want another fight.

"There you are. What are you working on?", he said, stopping just inside the door.

"I'm going to prove it to you. Show you that Brody didn't do this.", Carrie gestured towards her whiteboard, which now had three or four luminous green post-its stuck at various points along a long thick black line running through the centre of the board, with 1.47 v.s. 1.22 in bold red figures at the end of it. Orange post-its floated around the green ones, connected to them with arrows drawn in marker pen. The post-its were adorned with different coloured text in quotation marks.

"Are you feeling okay? You were involved in a massive explosion just a day ago, after all. It's normal not to feel yourself after something as big as this. I sure as hell don't and I wasn't even there.", he said.

"I'm okay. I just..._we_ just all need to get to work. Why is nobody doing anything?". Carrie said, tapping her pen against her free hand.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you Carrie?", Saul said, letting it hang somewhere between a question and a statement, his voice cracking a little.

Somehow Saul knew, even _before_ he knew, Carrie thought.

She stifled a gulp. She knew that this was a general question. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep him at bay for much longer. When he inevitably figured it out she wouldn't be able to bear it if she lost Saul. Her balloon would simply float away, lost to the ether without his ballast. But she also knew she had already crossed that line, the deception had begun the second she called out to him amongst the body bags. Carrie was once again risking everything, her career, her mental health, her most treasured relationships for Brody. She had to believe that she was right to do so, it was Brody she needed to cling to now. She thought back to how tightly he had insisted on holding her when they went to sleep that last night in the cabin. She had assured him that she wasn't going anywhere but he would not let go. Carrie had waited for him to drop off before squirming around enough to loosen his grip. She made sure it wasn't too loose though. Normally she liked to be left alone to sleep, she felt claustrophobic if her partner intruded on her space too much, but this had felt just right.

"I'm fine, Saul. Really.", she said, pretending that she thought they were just talking about her condition. She bit her lip to stop any rogue expression creeping on to her face.

"Well Maggie is here just to check you out. You told me you were with her and your dad last night, that she'd given you the all clear? That counts as a lie, doesn't it?".

He was mad at her, she could tell. Sometimes with Saul, the madder he was, the stiller he became. He had already figured that she was being devious and was trying to ascertain how many fathoms deep the iceberg went, she could feel him calculating it, weighing her up. She could also see that he was afraid of what he would see when he reached the answer.

There was a silence between them. Each of them wondering how it had come to this.

Quinn could see the family resemblance. Both blond, both slight and both _incredibly_ snippy. Saul and Maggie had seemed to know each other, he thought. Quinn guessed that keeping Carrie on the straight and narrow must be a tag team thing. They waited just outside the office, able to feel the glacial standoff between Carrie and Saul through the glass wall.

Carrie spotted her sister outside the door. She was transported back to the time when she had shoplifted candy from a store in her neighbourhood, aged nine. The store owner had called her mother and none of it had seemed real to Carrie until she saw her mother's face appear at the window. _Then_ she wailed.

"What the fuck?! Saul! I told you I am fine, I'm perfect! I just have a lot to be getting on with, I just need to focus and if you people would just let me alone for a while I could make some headway!", she blustered, voice raising.

"You need to go with Maggie, Carrie. Take a few days to get over this, get out of here.", Saul was inscrutable.

"Are you fucking firing me?", she yelled.

"No. I'm not. But I am proposing that you stay away for a while. A hiatus. You can't afford to hurt yourself over this and I can't afford to let you. I already have 212 souls on my conscience. I need you back in one piece.", Saul said sadly. He nodded Maggie into the room.

Maggie looked gaunt, too afraid for Carrie to be mad at her just yet. This was the second time she had needed to bundle her little sister away from a huge fucking CIA mess in as many years. She wondered what Carrie had done this time. Sometimes she wished she would just accept that she had limits.

"A _hiatus_? But this can't wait!", Carrie jabbed her pen over to the whiteboard. "I've found a lead.". "Saul", she begged, "He was recycled. His video was re-used, re-purposed, re-issued. Brody was no longer fit for his original purpose but he was too valuable a resource for Nazir to just let him go to waste. So he used him anyway! His video has been edited. Saul, there are twenty five missing seconds. They took out the parts of the video that no longer applied to this attack. _They made the confession fit the crime!". _Carrie was wide-eyed, animated but quickly losing heart that he wasn't showing any signs of enthusiasm at her discovery. She began to weep in frustration. _  
_

"This proves nothing, Carrie", he said simply.

"No, not in isolation, I agree, but it's a start. Come on, Saul!. I'm telling you - Brody _is_ innocent!".

Saul heard her use the present tense. He registered it but he didn't react, he still wasn't sure if the iceberg was growing or if it was a trick of the light hitting the water.

"I think it's best if you go home, Carrie. Get some rest, take a break. But don't go too far, we'll need you.". He looked at Maggie, who put a protective arm around Carrie and was surprised when she didn't have to pull her out of there by her hair. "I'll call you in a couple of days.".

Carrie took a last possessive peep at her whiteboard diagram and allowed herself to be lead away by Maggie, who cast Saul a look that was an apology and a thank you all in one.

Carrie wondered how many red dots Brody could burn through in a couple of days.

When they had left and all was silent again, Saul approached the whiteboard. He was accustomed to deciphering her technicolor diagrams, following the thread of reason through labyrinths made of paper, Sellotape and rainbows. He agreed that colour helped in categorising certain trains of thought but like everything else about her, Carrie's reliance on it was extreme. This latest oeuvre was subdued in comparison to past works, he thought.

Quinn appeared by his side. He cocked his head to take it in, read some of the post-its. "What's this? The 101 greatest proverbs of Abu Brody?!", cracked Quinn.

Saul narrowed his eyes. "No. They're not quotations. They're the things he doesn't say. The missing 25 seconds. The things they felt the need to cut out this time. Carrie says they recycled his video. By looking at the parts they edited, she thinks we'll gain insight into what's important to them.".

Quinn thought of how he had rolled his eyes and tossed his Dr. Pepper in the trash can instead of the recycling pail after his exchange with Carrie earlier on, just to spite her for being screwy. He smiled. "Insight huh? Insight bordering on witchcraft. So what do we have?", he asked The Bear as they stared at the post-its.


	30. Chapter 30

"However it hurts the least.", he said to her when she had insisted he believe that this wasn't goodbye. Whether he chose to believe that this was the end for them forever or not, it didn't change the gnaw of grief he had felt in that moment. Actually, it hadn't let up since, eating him slowly from the inside out.

Hurting her the least was incompatible with her eventually coming to discover his body mouldering in the cabin, the gun she gave him at his side, her fight still aflame while he had selfishly and cravenly extinguished his own.

He had thrown himself forward, as if in fervent prayer, and used the chalk from Carrie's backpack to etch across a floorboard. He concentrated, tried to make it a work of art, gripping the chalk stick tightly to subdue his shaking hands. He took care to dispense with the uneven staccato capital letters of his own handwriting and tried to make the letters uniform, the lines straight, the curves smooth.

C. O. M. P. L. E. T. E. L. Y.

He reared up on his knees to appraise his work, his little reference to their private mythology. He wondered whether she would ever see it, whether some creature's paws might rub it away, whether she'd snort a laugh and think him lame. He didn't care, it was almost more for his benefit anyway, an affirmation that he would keep going for her, rather than a message to Carrie that he had been there and that he loved her. She already knew, after all.

Brody stalked on through the woods, achieving an almost meditative state through the rhythm of his strides, only the occasional stumble on the uneven ground breaking his focus. He felt better for being mobile again, for being outside, drawing the scent of resin into his nostrils. Putting distance between himself and the darkness he had skirted in the cabin felt cathartic, that he was motoring on and creating space between his body and the mess at Langley made him feel like he still had some say in matters. People should appreciate peacetime while it lasts, he thought.

Brody imagined that every thin sapling he passed represented a millimetre line, with every fat tree trunk marking a centimetre on a ruler pressed against a map that showed the expanse between his current location from Langley and from Iraq.


End file.
